Application of logic
by VerizonHorizon
Summary: Sylar thinks he can adapt Spock's logic to control his sociopathic hunger for abilities and killing, but he didn't count on having to live out Spock's life as an officer aboard the Enterprise. Heroes/StarTrekReboot no pairings
1. My AU self is an alien

_Disclaimer: Heroes/StarTrek are not mine and you'll find no profit here. Unbeta'd. Enjoy!_

CHAPTER 1

"Even if it were possible," Sylar began, slowly wrapping his head around the possibilities of accepting the outrageous proposal, "absorbing his memories from objects will not be enough to convincingly play the role of a StarTroop officer - "

"StarFleet," corrected the man – no, Bulcan or Vulcan something – standing a few feet from him in the Company holding cell, his feet apart and his hands locked behind him. Formal, rigid. Inhuman.

" - much less an..." Sylar hesitated then breathed out slowly, "alien." He ran his fingers through his hair, frowning slightly to feel the product he'd used to slick it back left them a bit sticky. He fidgeted, wiping the offended hand on his gray Company-issued pants.

"Half," Spock amended. "Half Vulcan, half human. But this line of thinking is, in any case, irrelevant. You will not be posing as me on the Enterprise." Spock's steady gaze turned steely. Sylar thought he could see the Vulcan's clasped hands tighten further, though he made no other movement. "The very idea is preposterous."

Sylar shifted his dark brown eyes from the Vulcan – fine, half Vulcan – to the other less antagonistic, though no less dangerous, being that had engendered the current situation. What that situation really was and how it came about was, even to Sylar's not inconsiderable intelligence, extraordinarily confusing.

Extraordinary indeed.

He'd been trying to adjust to the idea of being a Petrelli, of not letting his hunger for new powers rule him, but he'd already failed before he'd barely begun. When Angela – his mother? – handed him back his Company grays, he felt resigned and let himself be led back to his 'room.' Gray walls, gray clothes, equally gray turn of thoughts. Sylar never fancied himself poetic, had never pursued any of the arts – unless you count painting the future with whatever medium was at hand in a trance as artistic – but the monotony of gray upon gray was not helping him maintain control.

He felt caged.

Trapped.

In his own mind, his own body, as much as in the oppressive room itself.

Despair welled up in him, as he jerked off his tie, making a choked sound as he nearly strangled himself in the process. As if it mattered. Abrasions would heal, thanks to Claire. The threads of his control? Another matter entirely.

Sitting down on the metal – and yes, gray – table, he tried to kick of his Converse._ Damn. She even got me in loafers. _He debated using his power to slice the tight black laces off the annoyingly shiny footwear – was it mocking him too? – but instead untied them with his fingers and harshly flung them against the wall. Bone weary sadness was giving way to anger. He'd like to call it righteous anger, except that it wasn't.

Standing up and starting to pace, he skimmed off his shirt's buttons and yanked off the shirt. He wanted to fling it away like the shoes, like he flung away his attempt at being a Company man, but throwing a flimsy shirt would not be satisfying. Tear it? He let out a short bark of laughter, the only sound in the cell. _Ripping shirts, now? _Sylar thought to himself._ Is that what you've come to? Pathetic_. Reining himself in, Sylar folded the shirt and placed it down, snagging the gray tank top.

He was angry, so angry.

At Angela.

At Bennet.

At all of them.

At himself.

He needed a goal, a purpose.

He thought the Company could be that purpose, but subduing other 'monsters' like himself left him with a bad taste in his mouth. He was meant for something better. _He was special_. He itched to let that thought be inflected as a question.

And standing there, in trousers and bare feet, he whirled around to face a mass of light particles with something slowly appearing within them...not a something, but a person. The only person he had met who could travel from one place to another by appearing instantaneously was Hiro – who _stabbed_ him when he wasn't even doing anything wrong, dammit – but the dark brown eyes meeting his own directly on his eye level were not those of Hiro's. They were his own.

--------------------

Sylar stared frankly at the being in front of him – himself and yet....not. In fact, the closer he looked, the less like himself this stranger appeared. Despite the similarity in the eyes, the greenish cast to his skin was strange. The eyebrows were not so bushy like his own unmanageable ones, instead narrow and upturned. And the ears. Sylar gawked at the unearthly appendages. They were pointed! Sylar scoffed to himself that he could have even for a moment confused this person with himself.

The stranger had not spoken yet, apparently equally interested in a visual inspection, but more of his surroundings than of Sylar himself. The perusal was conducted by calculating eyes, as if every detail was being committed to memory. Perhaps it was. Finally, the stranger spoke.

"Where am I?"

It was English, but the smooth cadence was robotic. Sylar wondered for a moment if it wasn't some sort of machine. Deciding to present an air of authority, Sylar slowly began a deliberate walk around the stranger, making sure to tread with a deadly calm and an intensity in his stare. Sylar knew he could be intimidating when he wanted to and used it to his advantageous. He responded coolly, "Level 5."

"Insufficient," the stranger remarked, rotating to keep his face to Sylar.

_Definitely a robot_, Sylar decided.

"On which planet am I located?" The stranger clarified.

Sylar's eyebrows raised, but answered anyway, "Earth."

That answer seemed to appease the stranger, who gave Sylar a short nod before moving towards the door. A bit put-out by the quick dismissal – _perhaps my intimidation skills need some brushing up - _Sylar watched to see what would happen when the stranger realized it was locked.

The pointy-eared stranger tugged at the door. Then pushed towards it. Then pulled again. He looked strong, but he wasn't strong enough to open that door. The Company knew the kind of people they were locking up.

Realizing his efforts were fruitless, the stranger turned back to Sylar. "You are a prisoner."

It wasn't quite a question. But Sylar could sense that the stranger hoped he would provide information about their predicament. If the stranger wasn't going to be intimated by Sylar, there were other ways to be the one in power. Information is power. Leaning against the wall and folding his arms over his chest, Sylar just stared stonily.

The stranger huffed at his silence, and then invaded his personal space by stepping close but not touching. He spoke slowly then, as if to a dull child. "It would be logical if we worked together to discover a means of escape."

Sylar didn't like to be cornered, so he roughly pulled his arms down, brashly knocking against the stranger's too-close hands as he barreled across the room feeling a spark of...something...from the contact. The stranger jumped back, startled, cradling his hands to his body. "Radioactive hands?" Sylar joked. He worked the gray tank on over his head. "I've seen that before." He smoothed the tank down until it lay flat.

The stranger shook his head, his bangs swooping across his forehead and settling perfectly back in place. "Negative." His composure had settled back perfectly into place as well.

"I've got powers of my own," Sylar informed him in his 'don't mess with me' voice.

"Understood," was the only reply.

Then, to Sylar's surprise, the stranger sat down near the thick glass wall in a lotus meditation position. His eyes were closed in concentration.

_That's it? He's going to meditate now?_ Sylar wondered, a bit disappointed at the surprise visitor. He wouldn't have minded an all out fight, he was hungry to use his powers again already, the adrenaline rushing through him at the novelty of it all. He could goad him, but the guy – elf? robot? – seemed pretty internally-focused at the moment.

Sylar tried to wait it out. Surely the guy would give up this posturing after a few minutes. But he didn't. He remained still as a statue, except for the even breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Sylar envied the peace that was clearly surrounding the stranger. A peace that always eluded Sylar himself.

Sylar found himself desperate for that kind of self control. To meditate away his ever-present hunger. That would be a feat.

He could do it.

He could take this stillness for himself, this ability.

It was useful.

Quick as a cat, Sylar suddenly leapt towards the stranger, brutally slamming him against the glass partition with his powers. The stranger had the nerve not to look panicked. Sylar aimed his finger at his forehead, preparing to slice open his head.

"Fascinating," the stranger breathed out. "You are human. And yet..." he trailed off.

"Really?" Sylar drawled, curious. "I'm about to slice open your head and learn how you work." He drew a bit closer and whispered harshly. "And you find that...fascinating?"

That raised the stranger's left eyebrow straight up as he caught on to his imminent mortal dilemma. He replied, "Slice open my head to find out how I work? That is highly illogical. Such a goal could be easily achieved through other means."

Sylar kept his finger aimed, but responded, "How?"

The stranger was a foot in the air, held up by Sylar's will alone, and he still presented a veneer of calm. He answered as if Sylar had invited him for lemonade on the porch. "89.6% chance of success through shared mediation, 98.3% through a meld."

"A meld?"

"A meeting of minds. A telepathic connection."

Sylar really wanted to slice open his head and see what was in this strange man's brain, but he held himself in check. Maybe it would be worth exploring some other method, something less violent. Or at least, less messy. His whole body twitched, ready for action. But he had an opportunity. And he was damned curious. He just met some sort of alien robot and he was going to kill him within the first hour? He adjusted his aim to the stranger's chest and threatened, "I'll slice your heart apart if you fail to show me what I need."

The stranger's eyebrow went up again. "Then you are aiming in the wrong place," he told Sylar smoothly.

"What?"

"My heart. It's not in my chest cavity."

Sylar stared at him. "Where is it?"

The stranger looked evenly at him. "I am not going to tell you if you only plan to use the information to my detriment."

Sylar sighed and rolled his eyes at the dry humor. Or at least, Sylar found it humorous. "Fine." He released the stranger form his mental hold and stepped back to let him compose himself. He raised open palms. "Show me. The link. Your ability."

"Sit," the stranger told him, gracefully seating himself on the hard floor, long legs folded. Sylar tried to sit as gracefully, but his own long legs made him tumble awkwardly. He looked at the serene stranger and mirrored his cross-legged pose, again reminded that he wanted that serenity for himself. Whatever it was that was making this guy – apparently not a robot, if he had a heart – so cool and collected, Sylar had to have it.

Sylar started back hastily when the stranger reached towards his face, and demanded, "Tell me what you're going to do before you do it."

The stranger nodded once. "I will place one hand on your face and through it form a telepathic connection. Then I will guide you through my thought processes until you find what you seek."

Sylar already felt soothed by the stranger's quiet voice, though it was barely inflected. The kind of voice that you first interpreted as boring, that could lull you to sleep, until you listened closer and heard that it was not boring but precise and calming. Hypnotic, even. Hoping he wasn't being manipulated but wiling to consider the possibility, Sylar sat still and waited.

He didn't have to wait long.

Taking his silence as consent, the stranger reached for him again, placing his hand on his face, finding unseen points to guide him. Sylar saw that the stranger had already closed his eyes, eerily similar to his own, and did the same.

"My mind to your mind."

_'My thoughts to your thoughts.'_

Brightness.

Color.

As gray and lifeless as the cell had been was how colorful and dynamic the world in which Sylar saw – thought? – himself.

_Beautiful_, he thought.

But then he changed his mind as the colors and images started whirling too fast to keep track of, racing and rushing through a portal of lights and sounds and pictures.

And it was all too much.

Too overwhelming.

He couldn't navigate this place, wherever he was.

Sylar started to panic, fear swooping in unexpectedly in the medley of variegated visions he sped through.

He thought he might have screamed, but he wasn't sure if it was aloud or here, in his mind.

But then, a rope.

Right there.

If he could just reach it.

He could. He gripped it with formidable strength and knew it was a lifeline.

'_Pull the rope.'_ The instructions came out of nowhere, just appearing there in his mind. He obeyed. He pulled.

And pulled.

And something was on the other end of the rope, and he knew he needed to get there.

The colors and lights were a maelstrom around his consciousness but he focused on pulling the rope.

Finally he won the tug-of-war. And in a heartbeat, he reached the end of the rope and his surroundings changed completely. This place was calm and organized. Clean. Pleasant, even. There were still colors, but they were patterned and controlled. There were images but they were categorized and kept distinct. Ordered. Everything here was ordered. He tried to ask what was going on but couldn't form the words.

'_Do not try to talk. Just think and I will know your thoughts.'_

Puzzlement. Disbelief. _I'm in your mind?_ Sylar thought-asked.

'_Yes.'_

Sylar didn't know what he was supposed to do now that he was here. _Wasn't he supposed to guide me?_ _That was the deal_.

'_And I will. Be patient. We must adjust to the meld.'_

Sylar did not want to be patient. He wanted answers, he wanted the ability, he had to have it. He was so close. He tried to project the image of mentally tapping his foot.

It was met with a warm desert breeze that somehow carried a gentle humor. _'Indeed.'_

More moments passed, how long Sylar could not tell.

'_A mere 2.3 minutes,'_ came the surprising reply.

_You have an innate time-sense?_

'_Affirmative.'_

_I want that, too._ Sylar already had an intuitive grasp of the workings of time-pieces, so this ability seemed only fitting.

'_Ability?' _The question was posed to him.

_Yeah, powers I have – or have acquired._

'_Ah, I see. My _abilities_ as you call them are native to my species.'_

Sylar furrowed his mental brow.

'_I am Vulcan.'_

Sylar still thought-questioned.

'_The planet Vulcan...where I am from.'_

_You're an alien_, Sylar realized. Another peg down for the robot theory.

Sylar thought the stranger was mentally grinning. _'Apparently also from the future. The ship was orbiting _Earth _before I appeared here, but centuries from now.'_

_Oh_, was Sylar's simple reply, still focused on the new feeling of being in a telepathic meld.

'_Now we are ready to begin. After all, it is logical that I would like to keep both my brain and heart intact.'_

Sylar conveyed his agreement, and followed the stranger's mental presence as it moved through the space of his mind. He learned how to pick up a thought at random, examine it, and absorb it into his own knowledge. He grabbed a strong, repeating current and said, _Your name is Spock._

'_Yes. And yours is Sylar. And Gabriel Gray.'_

A mental-frown. _I thought we were in _your_ mind, not mine!_

'_A mind-meld is inherently two-ways. It _is _a _meld._'_

_Yeah, yeah_, Sylar thought. He knew what the word _meld_ meant. He wasn't an imbecile. It was just new to him. But he was a fast learner and already continued on. He was collecting all the information on the stranger's ability he needed, with the stranger's – _Spock's – _mental presence hovering around him the whole time. Probably making sure he didn't traipse where he wasn't wanted. Surprising himself, Sylar didn't mind. Nothing he wanted was hidden so far, so if the guy wanted to keep some stuff private he didn't really care for personal information anyway. He was focused on downloading and copying the mental pathways of the stranger's methods of self-control.

'_Of logic,' _Spock added helpfully. _'I follow the teachings of Surak, of logic. It is the Vulcan way.'_

Sylar noted this but was caught up in his task. It was assuaging the hunger, he was applying what he was discovering as quickly as he was doing the discovering itself. Spock continue to follow his mental footsteps for a long while. Sylar had gotten what he wanted, an understanding of the ways Spock's mind worked, and began wandering down mental offshoots that were interesting but not relevant to his goals. _'I believe you have what you need. We must end the meld. Too long in a meld results in...undesired consequences.'_

Sylar felt himself being unceremoniously kicked out of the meld and back into his own mind swifter than he had been prepared for. _That was abrupt, _he thought, _I must have been overstepping some boundary. But how much more intimate can you get that being in someone's mind in the first place?_

The stranger's – not so much a stranger anymore, given what they'd just shared – hand was already back at his side, the connection quite broken. Rather than speak, Sylar tested his new abilities. _It's 5:18pm (and 36 seconds)_. As for testing the effect of logically ordering his mind, he hoped an opportunity would present itself in the near future. But he did not doubt that it would help. He had the ability, he was certain of it.

His thoughts on the telepathy he had just experienced turned to another telepath he knew of, Matt Parkman. His mind reading did not require physical touching, not even a hand. He voiced the question to Spock, thinking it was weird to use his actual voice again, "How come you had to touch my face?"

Spock had already gotten up and was examining the door again. He didn't turn around, "Touch telepath," was the succinct answer.

"I took that, too," Sylar needlessly informed him. _Illogical to state the obvious, since he was _there_ in his mind, too_. And then Sylar paused and laughed to himself. _And now I sound like the robot alien!_ Sylar realized he had started to laugh aloud as well as internally.

"Something amusing?" Spock asked, his back still to him. Sylar was feeling a lazy contentment, and wasn't willing to be goaded. He could now rely on the same techniques as the alien to handle unpalatable situations. He didn't feel the need to jump up and antagonize the alien, Spock, but at the same time he didn't feel the need to assist him either. Yes, he wanted to leave, but his mind was calm for the first time in months, and he wanted to bask in the serenity of it.

"I must return to my captain--" Spock retracted, "to the Enterprise." He turned and stood next to the door, peering through the glass. "I am a Starfleet officer, Lieutenant Commander, and it is my duty to find a way back."

Sylar wasn't paying attention to Spock's plight, however. He was actually feeling rather exhausted from the day's excitement. The stress of trying to be Bennet's 'partner', of not wanting to disappoint Angela, of killing someone anyway, then the strange arrival of the alien, his near murder, and their telepathic encounter. His mind was tired but at ease, and he knew he could fall into an untroubled sleep. It sounded more appealing by the minute. He balled up his white button-down shirt and used it as a pillow, stretching out on the narrow cot – barely long enough for his tall frame. He closed his eyes and started to drift off.

He was half-asleep already when he heard an almost incredulous voice, "You're sleeping _now_? Illogical." But the last was muttered in quiet futility, even as Spock slid down the door to a sitting position. His knees met his chest, and his head leaned back. He considered toeing off his StarFleet issue boots, but decided not to in favor of being prepared for any new developments. He would rest and conserve his strength for when he could execute a plan for his escape. The fact that he didn't know how he came to be here in the first place was one of many obstacles that had to be addressed if he was to succeed in getting back to his right time and place.

It was as both men started to drift off into sleep that a third entity materialized in the cell. The entity looked back and forth between the cell's two occupants and, pleased, decided to let them rest before springing on them the opportunity of a lifetime.


	2. I am Spock

_Disclaimer: Heroes/StarTrek are not mine and you'll find no profit here. Unbeta'd. Enjoy!_

Chapter notes:

Illogical plot-device warning! Though given the two shows being crossed here, you're probably excellent at suspending disbelief :)

Also, there's a line from one of my favorite TVs shows that's returning to a new channel August 20th – can you guess what it is (and who it's attributed to)?

Thank you all for reviewing!

CHAPTER 2

"Rise and shine, gentlemen!" Called a sing-song voice, echoing cheerfully in the small cell.

Two sets of liquid brown eyes snapped open. Sylar was the first to address the second stranger that had appeared out of nowhere in his cell. _It's getting crowded in here_, he thought amusedly as he leapt to his feet. He saw Spock do the same. "Who are you?"

"Doesn't matter," came the easy response from the petite young woman standing there. "This isn't about me, anyway. It's about you." Seeing Sylar's hands twitch in a warning that he was about to use his abilities, she put up her palms in a non-threatening 'who me?' position. "Rumor has it," she continued, "you're having trouble controlling your abilities. I'm able to offer you a way to work on that."

Miffed, Sylar was about to respond when Spock interrupted, "Are you responsible for my appearance here? It is imperative I return to my ship."

"Yes, yes, I know, First Officer duties." She turned to Sylar. "Spock is the Lieutenant Commander of the starship Enterprise--"

"Yeah, I got some of that in the mind meld," Sylar said.

"Oh? You already melded?" She sounded surprised. "How convenient. I guess you're ready to go then."

"Go where?" Sylar asked.

"To where he came from. The Enterprise, where you will take his place for a little while. It'll be good for you."

"_Good_..." Sylar echoed, letting it trail into a question. Lately, he wasn't sure there was any _good_ in him at all. He wasn't even sure what counted as _good_. Was the Company good? Was chasing down other people with abilities _good_? Was he capable of doing _good_?

"Absolutely not," Spock's voice was hard and resolute. He walked towards the strange woman and towered over her form. "I have encountered many lifeforms with strange abilities in the last one point two four years aboard the Enterprise, and I am certain I can find some means to placate you in order to return to my vessel and--"

"Re_lax,_ Spock. Sylar won't break your ship," she interjected with a smirk.

_I might_, Sylar worried to himself. "Why me, anyway?"

"You don't see it?" The woman asked.

"See it?" he repeated blankly.

"You're the same person." Sylar and Spock both glared at her skeptically as she gestured between them. "Just...from different alternate universes. That's why this is possible. It's merely switching two identical beings for a limited amount of time. It will be fascinating experiment." At the last, she winked at Spock.

"I, for one, have met an alternate version of myself already. And this is not the same," Spock stated, thinking of the Ambassador.

"That was more of a timeline glitch – same timeline, just different events happened in it, later things affecting earlier things. This," she pointed to Sylar, "is _you_ in a completely _different_ dimension." She paused. "It is unnecessary for you to know the details. All you need to know is that you, Sylar, will living as Spock for a bit. And you, Spock, will be living here as Sylar for a bit."

"How long is 'a bit'?" Spock demanded angrily.

"Maybe a few days. Maybe a few weeks. I really couldn't say. I'm not really concerned with keeping time," was the unhelpful reply, accompanied by a shrug. She refocused on Sylar, "So, now you're going to go to the Enterprise and try to be a good Spock." She snapped her fingers and Sylar was shocked to look down and see himself in an exact replica of the blue outfit and black pants Spock was wearing. Well, that and the boots, which Spock still hadn't had a chance to put back on. "Something's missing," she said, pursing her lips.

"A Q..." Spock murmured quietly, drowned out by Sylar's response.

"I'm not a shape-shifter," Sylar pointed out, "...yet." That would be a very _special_ ability. His mouth watered just thinking about it.

"I can fix that," the woman replied and snapped her fingers again. "Try it," she encouraged.

Sylar concentrated and imagined changing his form. His body shuddered and he couldn't hold back a small gasp at the almost painful sensation. When he looked up, he was on eye level with the strange woman and at least a foot shorter than Spock. He decided quickly that he didn't like looking up at people.

"No, no, not _me_!" The woman protested, rolling her eyes impatiently.

Sylar tried out the smirk the woman had used on him earlier. Then, with a sigh, focused on switching again, this time to Spock's form. The second time was already much easier and less uncomfortable. But he wasn't sure that ease was because it was the second time or because he was switching into an alternate version of himself. Was he really going to go through with this crazy...trip? Maybe the Company had pumped him too full of some experimental drugs and none of this was real. He felt like he wasn't even taking the situation seriously. Unlike Spock, that is. Spock looked, to be frank, pissed. Then, a thought occurred to Sylar. Despite the mind meld, he didn't know how to _be_ Spock in his day-to-day routine. He knew _how_ to think like Spock, but even with his recently acquired ability to absorb the history of objects (_thanks for the treat, mother-dear_), he wasn't sure he could pull off being Spock.

Sylar's thoughts brought him back to the present. He recalled voicing his concerns and Spock's comment that the whole idea was 'preposterous.' Well, Spock was probably right. But he was in no position to turn down getting the hell out of here – here being this cell, the Company, his life as he knew it. Confusing and risky as it was to fake being some kind of navy command guy in the future, he knew he was going to go for it.

"Just...make it work," the woman advised. She was full of unhelpful advice, it seemed.

Apparently resigned to what was happening, Spock came up to him and simply said, "Trust the Captain." Then, Spock seemed to hesitate before adding ruefully, "And Dr. McCoy."

Sylar was going to say something back, but he heard another snap of fingers and everything went black. Then white. And when he blinked and opened his eyes, he found himself sitting in at a table with some kind of 3-D chess board on it. And across the table sat a man who was looking at him with impossibly blue eyes. "Your turn, Spock."

-----------------------------------

Sylar stayed perfectly still, breathed in and out slowly, and took stock of the room. Some things looked quite recognizable, like the books and trinkets decorating the shelves against the wall. But other things, like the strange computer-like thing on the desk, the odd door, hell even the chess board, were unfamiliar. He looked at the game, and recognized most of the pieces, but he didn't know what to do about the three levels. Still, the other guy was waiting on him, so he figured he'd do something. He reached out a hand to move a piece to _some_where, when he realized he didn't even know if he was playing black or white. He felt ridiculous with his hand paused in mid-air. He dropped it quickly and cleared his throat. _Way to not be conspicuous_, he berated himself. _You haven't even been here 30 seconds._ "What was the last move?" he asked as innocently as he could.

The other man, wearing a shirt similar to his own but in a golden tan color, leaned in towards the table, an elbow propped on each knee with his hands coming together to rest under his chin. "Mind not on the game, Spock?" The fingers under his chin strummed along the jaw line thoughtfully. "That's positively unlike you."

"Be that as it may, I believe I will retire." Sylar's hands itched to touch some object in the room that would help determine whether the room was his own or the other man's. He needed more information. To this effect, he stood up and walked towards the bed in the far corner of the room. Without looking to see the other man's reaction, he touched the sheets and absorbed their history. _Definitely not Spock's_, he thought, sensing the many beings the other man – Captain Kirk – had shared these sheets with. He did a mock 'about face' and headed to the door. _Open sesame?_ Sylar thought. He kept standing there, unsure if the doors would just open automatically or if he had to hit a button on the side. Hoping to err on the side of caution, knowing that the Captain was staring at his back, he palmed the panel, dismayed to feel two different buttons. Probably one was open and one was lock. Aiming for a lucky break out of the awkward situation, he hit the higher one. A lock audibly clicked in place. Still not turning around, Sylar grimaced.

"Spock," the Captain said softly. He was approaching, Sylar could hear the man's steps until he stood much too close to Sylar's personal space, right next to the door panel. Sylar _knew_ Spock didn't like people in his personal space, so he was surprised that Spock's own Captain seemed to disregard this preference. Then again, Sylar, as Spock, had gotten up in the middle of their chess game, said he wanted to retire, walked over to the _Captain's_ bed, and then locked the two of them in together. Who knows what the Captain must be thinking? He knew what Spock would think about Sylar's blunders. He'd murder Sylar for the indignity. Or, at least, severely chastise. Sylar turned his head slightly to meet the concerned gaze and the prompt, "You okay?"

"Yes," Sylar replied, going for nonchalant. "I'm simply," he paused, "not myself." _There, it's the truth_. He maneuvered his hand to hit the correct button without touching the Captain, and the door opened. "I must retire." And not waiting for a response, he dashed out into the hallway. The door had closed automatically behind him and he wasn't being followed, so he made his way slowly, tuning his memory reading ability to each door he passed. Luckily, the First Officer's quarters were not far from the Captain's, so he found his door quickly and entered.

Into a _freaking desert_.

The heat was overpowering to the senses, but Sylar quickly sensed that this was the right temperature for his half-Vulcan form. Though intellectually he knew it was really hot, it felt wonderful. _I guess shape shifting isn't just appearances_, Sylar thought. _That could be needlessly complicated, since that means my body is really alien, er, half alien._

Happy to be alone, Sylar started his tour of the Spock's quarters – and Spock's memories. Based on his abysmal performance so far, he'd need all the help he could get.

He stretched out his fingers and started perusing the room, gently touching everything as he went and looking for the most interesting things. On a shelf, he picked up what looked like some kind of musical instrument. _A lyre_, he mused. Curious to see how well he could apply the knowledge he gleaned form the object with his ability, he plucked a few strings. Then a few more. It sounded harmonious. Sylar shrugged. He probably couldn't play a whole piece but he could get by.

Next, he reached for a picture of a middle-aged woman, human woman. It was in a small frame, but clearly cherished. As soon as he touched it, he was met with an onslaught of grief and pain. He dropped it immediately.

Spock's mother.

Vulcan.

All dead.

Gone.

That was not the kind of emotional transference Sylar wanted to deal with. He hoped to pick up something more benign, moving away from the shelf and towards Spock's working desk. He sat in the chair and pulled up the computer monitor. But then, in the corner of his eye, he was distracted by something glittery on the desk. Looking closer, he saw that the sparkling object was in fact an earring. Sylar snagged it and rolled it around in his fingers. _Uhura. Friendship. Comfort. She was wearing this earring when they kissed for the second time – alone then, not with the Captain and everyone watching. _Sylar kept twirling the earring in his fingers. _Uhura was also wearing the earring when they decided not to carry on a romantic relationship. Spock had been emotionally compromised. He'd just lost his mother. He wouldn't treat her as a substitute for anything, or be in a relationship with her where he felt he couldn't provide what she deserved. She didn't cry, she was too strong for that, but still he felt his Vulcan upbringing holding him back from even showing that he too was affected by the inevitable breakup. The earring had fallen then as she got up to leave. _

Sylar put down the earring. On one hand, he regretted that he wouldn't have a ready and willing girlfriend while he was here, but on the other hand he wasn't sure he could fool her anyway, so it was certainly easier. He turned his attention to the computer. Flipping through the files, he found that Spock kept an audio log. _Score!_ Now Sylar could get a more or less professional review of the past week of what Spock and the rest of the crew had been up to. And if it contained a few helpful personal insights into how to handle his colleagues, that would be great, too. He hit the play button and began to listen earnestly.


	3. This job isn't so hard

_Disclaimer: Heroes/StarTrek are not mine and you'll find no profit here. Unbeta'd. Enjoy!_

Chapter notes: Borrowing from TOS episode "Devil in the Dark". Reboot is AU, so anything can happen.

Also, do you guys want chapters from Spock's perspective, too?

CHAPTER 3

Sylar concentrated on synthesizing all the data on Spock that he had collected in a short time from listening to Spock's logs and absorbing the memories of various objects in his room. He'd arrived on the Enterprise during one his evening chess games with the Captain, something Spock did nearly once a week, missions permitting. Since it had been night and Spock wasn't scheduled for a late shift on the bridge, Sylar used the hours for acclimation rather than sleep. But his recently acquired time-sense was now telling him his time was up and he was due on the bridge to man the science station at 0800. Sylar decided to skip on breakfast in the mess and donned a fresh uniform before exiting his quarters.

He was as ready as he could be. He knew that the ship was in between missions, so his job was to monitor things as they traveled until they received their 'marching' orders. The previous mission had been the subject of much contemplation by Spock in his logs. They'd encountered a time portal that called itself the Guardian of Forever, and he and the Captain had to chase down Dr. McCoy to ensure that their own time period wasn't affected by the changes McCoy could have caused if he'd saved the lovely and intelligent Edith Keeler. Sylar thought Spock's role in the mission was quite constraining, boring even, though Spock wouldn't put it that way. Locked up, hiding in an old room in Depression era Earth fiddling with ancient equipment, his Captain demanding the impossible task of building the necessary modern day equipment from 1930s scraps. Spock seemed only mildly irritated that the Captain had spent most of his time cavorting with Miss Keeler while Spock was working diligently on the equipment, but Sylar could hear between the lines of the log entries. Sylar couldn't tell if Spock's irritation with the mission had stemmed from jealousy of Kirk for getting out of that room and getting to spend time with Miss Keeler or of Miss Keeler for monopolizing the Captain's time – or both. Regardless, Sylar was just happy that the mission was ended successfully and he didn't have to deal with it.

Waiting for the turbolift to reach the bridge, Sylar wanted to tap his feet impatiently. But part of being Spock was practicing a strict economy of movement. No unnecessary fidgeting, no hand wringing, no foot tapping. That went for the facial expressions as well. Quirking his narrow, slanting eyebrows seemed to convey everything Spock required. Economy of movement indeed.

The lift doors opened (of their own accord, this time) and Sylar made a bee-line for Spock's science station. He glanced quickly at the Captain's chair, noting that it was still empty, and bent over his screens to see what he could figure out. It seemed the data being recorded was readings from sensors mostly outside the ship, but since they were traveling and not directly sweeping for anything, there was nothing of note to report. Sylar's mind started to wander, as did his eyes. The future really was impressive. The technology astounding. Sylar surveyed the rest of the bridge crew, it was in his purview as First Officer anyway. Except for himself, er, Spock, everyone was human. When his eyes made their way to Uhura, he was startled to see she was looking straight at him. Looking into her eyes, Sylar couldn't help but muse over some of Spock's memories of her in a romantic light. She was beautiful. It really was a shame. She gave him a look conveying 'what?' but was interrupted by the Captain bounding onto the bridge with an obscene amount of energy for this early in the morning.

"Good morning, Uhura," Kirk said, hopping into his chair eagerly.

"Morning," she replied shortly, attending to her Communications station.

Kirk laughed and turned to Sylar, whispering conspiratorially, "Maybe there _is _such a thing as a no-win situation."

"Captain?" Sylar prompted.

"Well, I thought by now she'd have warmed up to me," Kirk paused. "Guess you have me beat there." He grinned.

"I can hear you," Uhura informed him from her station.

"Of course you can! You're the best communications officer in the fleet!" Sylar was surprised to hear in his inflection that that Kirk meant that genuinely. Apparently he liked to both tease and compliment his officers. "So, Spock – anything to report as we blaze through the stars?"

"No, sir," Sylar told him. "All systems stable. And we're not 'blazing.'"

Kirk folded his hands together and then unfolded him. It seemed he needed a constant outlet for his energy. "Mr. Sulu! We'll have a change of course soon. Admiral Komack will be patching in the orders within the hour."

And with that, the bridge was quiet again with everyone doing their jobs, the only sounds the occasional beeps and blips from the computers. Sylar wanted to excuse himself off the bridge, but he knew that wasn't proper protocol. He had to just _stand_ here. There was so much he wanted to explore, but he was being Spock and Spock had a job to do. It just wasn't a very exciting one when they weren't on a life-or-death mission. Not that Sylar wasn't interested in science. He was. Especially in evolution, of course. Since meeting Suresh, he'd taken a keen interest in that. He considered himself the next advancement of the human species. His abilities were part of that evolution. And it was a biological imperative that kept him hungering and hunting for new abilities. The strong rise above the weak, and everyone was potential prey.

Sylar tried to rein in his unproductive thoughts. Thinking about that would not help him remain cool and collected while on this spaceship, starship, whatever. He had decided at the beginning of this insanity that he was going to take the lessons in Vulcan logical control to heart. Biological imperative or not, he didn't really want to be a killer. Or at least not a killer who killed because he couldn't help it. That was just pathetic in its own way. Morally, Sylar didn't necessarily mind killing for abilities. But he didn't want the need to control him. He wanted to be the one in control. So he would play this game and be the Vulcan whose form he wore and acquire the necessary skills.

"Message to Captain. From Admiral Komack. Shall I patch it through, Captain?" Uhura's voice called out.

"I'll take it in my quarters," Kirk told her. He got up and motioned to Sylar to follow him. Happy for a distraction, Sylar complied. After a silent trip through the corridors, Sylar found himself back at the chess table in Kirk's quarters, while Kirk sat at the desk and flipped on the monitor. "Kirk here. And Commander Spock."

"Captain Kirk. Commander Spock. There is a distress call from the mining colony on Janus VI. They mine a crucial minerals that sustain life in their whole sector, and they're complaining that something is killing their miners and interfering with their equipment. Go, investigate, and find a solution. Komack out."

Kirk swiveled in his chair to face Sylar. "Short and sweet. Well, Mr. Spock, let Sulu know of the course change and we'll see if we can't sort this mining problem out."

"Yes, sir," Sylar said, already getting up to carry out the orders.

"Wait, Spock," the Captain said, his voice tinged with concern. "You're okay today, right? I don't mean to pry, but even you said you were off your game last night."

"I wasn't off the game, I forfeited it," Sylar responded, deliberately being obtuse.

"Okay, okay, I get it. You're fine," Kirk said, rolling his eyes.

"Fine is an imprecise term, insufficient for describing anything," Sylar told him logically.

"How would you describe yourself, then?" Kirk asked unperturbed.

"I am at peak capacity for efficiency."

"Good to hear."

There was a silence in conversation that was surprisingly companionable rather than awkward. Sylar quirked his eyebrows at the Captain. "Yes, yes, go on. Update the bridge. I'm gonna talk to Bones. See ya in the landing party."

"I must remind you again that sending both commanding officers in the away team is illogical," Sylar pointed out, remembering the comments from Spock's logs. Though very intelligent (hidden behind the bravado), the Captain was also exceedingly reckless.

Kirk just grinned at him. "You really wanna stay on the ship and miss out on the hands-on sciency exploration stuff?"

Sylar gave a short tug on his uniform shirt; it kept riding up at the most inconvenient times. Whoever designed them was most illogical. "Point taken, Captain. I'll see you in the landing party." He raised his eyebrow again, this time in amusement, and left for the bridge.

"Knew you'd see it my way!" came the call to his retreating form from down the corridor.

----------------------------------------

"So, you want us to hunt down the monster that's been killing the miners before the main reactor blows in the next few hours?" Kirk reprised the situation to the mining supervisor.

"Yes. I want that thing dead!" the mining supervisor exclaimed emphatically, pacing his office. "It's impervious to phasers, so watch your back," he advised. "Please excuse me," he added and left the office.

"Our phasers are of a more upgraded model than the miners', so we should be able to use them effectively on their highest setting," the Captain said as he adjusted the settings on his phaser. "Toss me yours, too," he told Spock and McCoy who did as he requested.

Sylar was interested in the gray sphere he was holding, about 8 inches in diameter. When he'd inquired about it, the mining supervisor had told him dismissively that it was one of thousands of silicon nodules found on recently-opened levels of the mine and lacked commercial value. Sylar kept staring at it in his hands, wondering what could have produced it. It was truly odd.

"Why do you keep fondling that sphere, you pointy-eared hobgobblin?" McCoy grumbled.

Sylar pursed his lips to avoid a scathing retort. He knew that McCoy was just trying to irk him and that he should not take any of the insults seriously. Still, he didn't like to be mocked. He tinged with the need to lash out, but restrained himself with effort. It wasn't logical to react to McCoy's taunts, which weren't even meant as anything other than teasing. So instead he simply said, "There is something about this silicon sphere that warrants further study."

"Maybe so, but it'll have to wait," Kirk said, tossing Spock his phaser back when Spock put the sphere down. His blue eyes sparkled with excitement at the prospect of another new adventure. "We've got a monster to hunt."

"We do not actually know if the source of the killings a monster," Sylar pointed out soberly, hooking the phaser to his belt and getting out the tricorder to take readings.

"Anything that's killed 50 people and now knocked out the main reactor putting the whole colony in jeopardy is by definition a monster," McCoy challenged.

Sylar countered, "Just because it has killed does not mean it wasn't provoked into doing so." _I would know_, he thought.

"Yes. It. Does," McCoy argued hotly. Then he added, "I thought you Vulcans were all for peace, anyway. Wouldn't it be illogical to resort to killing?"

Sylar sighed to himself as the three men exited the office and prepared to search the mines in teams. "It depends."

"Unbelievable," McCoy said, clearly exasperated.

"All right, you two. Finished yet? We've got work to do," Kirk said, heading off any further bickering. "McCoy, you stay with the miners and help if anyone is injured. Spock, you're with me."

Sylar nodded and followed the Captain further into the caves. He was searching for lifeform readings on the tricorder, but kept coming up with the miners and their own signals. He was so focused on looking down at the tricorder that he almost ran into Kirk when the Captain came to a dead halt. As it was, he stopped close enough to hear Kirk whisper, "D'ya hear that?"

"Yes," he whispered back, standing very still in hopes of hearing more of the strange sound. And then, out of one of the tunnels appeared an ugly mass of orange and brown, like a huge, undulating slug. Despite his earlier reluctance to kill the creature, he saw it moving towards the Captain and didn't want to risk Kirk's life or his own. Without waiting, he snagged his phaser, aimed, and fired. "Fire!" He yelled to Kirk, who had hesitated.

The Captain eventually fired and the two red beams made a direct hit. It didn't disintegrate, but it did retreat – and fast! Sylar jogged after it, but came to a fork in the cave.

"Two tunnels. Two of us. We split up," the Captain ordered.

"But sir..." Sylar protested, not wanting to risk his or the Captain's safety. He knew he was being irrational. The Captain could call him out on it. Not an hour before he was defending the creature and saying that they shouldn't kill what could be the last of a rare, unknown species. But as soon as that same creature threatened the Captain, Spock's logic failed him and he just reacted and wanted to put down the threat. And put it down efficiently. Sylar wasn't sure why this was the case. Was he already losing his identity to Spock's? He barely knew Kirk, the Captain wasn't _his_ best friend, and yet what little emotion transferred during the mind meld with Spock seemed to center around this life-defining friendship the Captain and Commander had developed out of, surprisingly, initial animosity. But even identifying the emotions as distinctly 'not his' wasn't preventing them from having their effect. Resigned, Sylar pushed forward with his illogical plea. "We should not be separated. The creature is dangerous. It's a killer." Sylar winced at his own hypocrisy, but didn't back down.

Kirk looked at him pensively. "Don't worry, we'll both be fine. Go on, that's an order." The last line was spoken firmly in full-command mode.

"Vulcans do not _worry_, Captain," Sylar informed him dryly, but his heart wasn't in it.

Kirk's teeth flashed in the darkness of the cave as he smiled reassuringly. "Of course not, Mr. Spock." Then, Sylar was left alone as the Captain picked one of the tunnels to follow, expecting Sylar to do as ordered. Which he did, cautiously.

The tunnel was more narrow than the caves dug out by the miners, and Sylar had to duck to make his way through it. It was dark, but the abundance of minerals sparkled, putting out a soft glow. He put his mind to the task of figuring out what kind of creature they had just encountered. He thought of the silicon sphere. There was some connection there. He just needed to think about it logically. Thousands of silicon spheres. Rock everywhere, and yet the creature moved quickly. Tunnels formed not by the miners but by something else. The creature had to be creating the tunnels, but how would it do so through solid rock? What could move through solid rock? Sylar felt he was on the brink of figuring it out when he heard a loud crashing noise, the sound of rock debris falling. A cave-in. He pulled out his communicator and quickly asked, "Captain, are you hurt?"

He gripped the communicator waiting for an answer.

"Kirk here," came the near whisper of the Captain through the communicator. "I'm okay," he hesitated, "but I'm not alone. The creature, it's here with me!"

"Shoot it, Captain!" Sylar cried. "Shoot it now!"

"Shh, no," Kirk said. "It's not threatening me. I think it's trying to communicate. And I think it's hurt."

"Stay there. I'm coming," Sylar stated resolutely, reading the tricorder to trace Kirk's signal.

By the time Sylar reached the alcove where Kirk was located, he was quite anxious. He approached the Captain and gave him a cursory once over to make sure he was not hiding any injury. Kirk stilled his questing hand by grabbing it and pointing to the creature. "I'm fine," he hissed, "but I want to know what it's trying to say. Can you meld with it?"

Sylar opened his mouth to reply in the negative but then thought about it. He supposed he could try. Honestly, the creature was gross. It would be like reaching out to touch a glob of pus. But he didn't let his distaste show on his face. He merely said, "I will attempt to reach its mind."

He put away the phaser he'd gotten out when rushing after Kirk and pushed back the strap holding the tricorder over his shoulder. He warily approached the creature that was laying on a rock like a squished moldy pancake magnified a thousand times and kneeled before it. He brought his hands together touching fingertips to fingertips as if in prayer, preparing for the meld. Then, unflinchingly, he placed his hands on the creature and closed his eyes, trying to channel its thoughts.

"Pain!" he gasped aloud in agony. He felt _pain_. He wanted to drop his hands. But he pressed on with the meld, attenuating to the creature's thoughts beyond the pain it was feeling from the phaser wound. Sylar wasn't born a touch telepath, so it was taking a considerable amount of effort to keep the connection going, especially with this alien creature. Sylar vowed he'd meld with another humanoid as soon as possible to overlay this unpleasant meld experience. When he felt he'd learned all he needed, he ended the meld and removed his hands. He blinked a few times, unsure how long he'd spent in communion with the Horta – for that is what it called itself, he'd learned – and was still reeling form the pain he'd felt emanating off the wounded cave inhabitant. He stumbled when he tried to get up, but didn't fall because Kirk was there to catch him, easing him into a leaning position against the cold cave wall. Sylar shuddered at the chill and the echo of pain, holding his head with his hands. He could feel Kirk was still holding him up, and with his telepathic senses heightened from the meld with the creature he could feel the Captain's concern through the contact. Concern and curiosity about what Sylar had found out. Sylar got control over his mind and body, and he batted away Kirk's hands as he stabilized. After taking one more deep, refreshing breath, Sylar reported what he found.

"The Horta is a silicon-based sentient, that's how she can travel through rock. And those silicon spheres are her eggs. The miners were unknowingly killing her unborn children. She was retaliating. She is the last of her kind, unless the children survive."

Kirk looked stunned, but processed the new information quickly. After all, the Captain was smarter than he usually let on. That and his diplomacy skills had increased dramatically during the slu of diplomatic missions the Enterprise had been assigned following the Nero crisis. StarFleet command insisted they were just giving them a well-deserved break, after all the excitement. But they failed to realize what Sylar did, that excitement is what Kirk thrived on.

Kirk mused aloud to Sylar, "I believe a compromise can be reached, then, between the Horta and the miners. These tunnels the Horta naturally carves out – they are more efficient for mining the precious metals than the caves carved out by the miners. If the miners are willing to let the Horta and her soon-to-be hatched children live and create the tunnels naturally, then the miners will profit by making use of those naturally-formed caves. They can cohabit on this colony in peace."

Sylar readily agreed, and he and the Captain made arrangements to implement the solution out with the miners and the Horta, not that Sylar was thrilled to have to meld with the creature to communicate again. They also contacted McCoy to come and try to help cure the injured Horta, which he did successfully using poured concrete as some sort of bandage. The miners and the Horta agreed on the new terms, as enough lives had been lost on both sides.

McCoy was insufferably smug as they beamed back to the ship and made their way to the bridge to resume command. "Heck, I'm starting to believe I can cure a rainy day!" the doctor boasted, still pleased he'd been able to assist a completely foreign lifeform. Sylar felt it was his job to take him down a peg or two.

"Impossible," Sylar told McCoy stoically, "and you were wrong about the Horta being a monster. She was a mother protecting her young, a biological imperative."

McCoy's face fell flat at this pronouncement. But then he grinned at Spock wryly. "All right, one point to you, pointy-ears."

The turoblift doors opened for the three men to the bridge. "Indeed, my ears are superiorly designed compared to yours," Spock said seriously, striding to the science station.

"Yeah, Bones, Spock's got cute ears. We know," Kirk said, and Sylar had to resist the illogical urge to blush.


	4. One step forward, two steps back

_Disclaimer: Heroes/StarTrek are not mine and you'll find no profit here. Unbeta'd. Enjoy!_

Chapter Notes: Liberal scene stealing from TOS episode "This Side of Paradise"

Also, this isn't a slash story, just the usual TOS awkward tension of two really close guy friends, especially when one is a Vulcan/sociopath, which you'll be reminded of in this chapter in case he was getting too normal for you :)

CHAPTER 4: ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK

Lounging in the sauna that was Spock's quarters, Sylar was immensely pleased with himself. He'd been pretending to be Spock without attracting undue suspicion for a week. He also hadn't killed anyone. All in all, a proud moment.

Not that it was easy, because it wasn't. Restraining himself to logical thinking and self-censure was challenging, like trying to dam up a lake that was overflowing. Trickles of irritation broke through now and then, but the levee was holding. He reinforced it through meditation several times a day. He wasn't sure his mental metaphor was accurate, but envisioning himself putting boulders and patches on his mental shields seemed to work, bolstering them.

The door chimed and Sylar got up to answer it. Before he could, it opened and the Captain stepped through. Sylar was going to explain that while the knocking was a good start, waiting until the other person opened the door was the appropriate second step. But Kirk cut him off, "Hey, Spock." He had the grace to look chagrined. "Sorry, Spock. At least I rang, right?"

"Indeed," Sylar commented, sitting back down at the table, "a definite improvement." He saw that Kirk had a folded board under his arm and a small bag in his hand.

"Chess?" came the hopeful offer, accompanied by an interested look.

Sylar inclined his head towards the table in front of him and gestured to it, signaling his acquiescence. He tugged his shin-length black meditation robe around his shoulders, settling in. He watched patiently as the Captain set up the board and the pieces. Sylar had familiarized himself with the game as soon as he'd discovered how often Spock and the Captain played, and he was actually eager to try it out. He'd never been a fan of chess in the past, but a game of strategy and logic appealed to him as much as it did to Spock. Meanwhile, Kirk had begun to 'talk shop.'

"I'm glad those trigger-happy miners didn't try to seek out further revenge against the Horta," Kirk said, placing one piece on the board at a time, methodologically starting at the top and working his way down. Sylar reached out to assist.

"Indeed," Sylar concurred. Then elaborated, "It would have been a crime against nature and science to have destroyed such a unique being, particularly one whose home and eggs they were unwittingly destroying,"

"Yeah, she should be added to the Federation's Endangered Sentients List or something." Kirk's hand slapped against his own mouth. "I, uh, that is," he trailed off, looking abashed.

Sylar just kept setting up the pieces. "Do not be so affected on my behalf, Captain. I am perfectly aware that Vulcans are on the list. It is only logical." He put the last piece on the board in its correct place and sat back to give Kirk the first move.

Kirk picked up a white pawn, then put it back down. He met Sylar's eyes. "Yeah, but, just, you know I do care. About you—about Vulcan. I thought I was getting better at preventing my verbal faux pas." The Captain picked the pawn back up.

"It is of no consequence," Sylar reassured him, though his mind did wander to the picture of Spock's mother and the sharp tug of emotion that it evoked. "I am not so easily baited."

"Hah, tell that to Bones," Kirk muttered, but then grinned. If Sylar was counting, it was already the thirty-fourth such facial twitch the Captain had executed in his presence since he arrived on the Enterprise. But he wasn't counting. Wait. "Your move," Kirk said, interrupting Sylar's thoughts and bringing his focus back to the game. He concentrated on what move to start with, because that first move was part of a larger strategy that would guide his play of the whole game. "We got our new orders, by the way." Sylar didn't respond, trying to ignore the Captain and focus on his move, so Kirk continued. "We're checking out Omicron Ceti III. We're going to see how the colonists are doing. They've been there for years, even though there's some dangerous radiation there after prolonged exposure. The Federation is puzzled how they're even still alive, so we're being sent to investigate."

"Captain," Sylar said at last, "I appreciate the debriefing but I must concentrate on making this move."

Kirk put his hands behind his head in a relaxed, if momentarily defeated, pose. At least he was quiet. "Oh, come on." Scratch that. "I need all the advantage I can get. You were the chess club coach for a while back in San Fran, right? I'm just a rather gifted amateur, if I do say so myself."

"I was," Sylar acknowledged and made his move. "I concede that you may continue to debrief me during the game in order to balance our respective skills."

"Well, we don't have to talk about the mission. That's all I know about it anyway. Bones has some medical files on it, but I didn't read them. He's the expert, not me."

"'Expert' is a generous term, Captain," Sylar said blithely.

Another grin. "Actually, I like how this trio of ours has turned out so far. It makes me feel useful, playing referee between the two of you." Kirk was again waiting for Sylar to make his move. Kirk himself played very quickly. One might think he had no strategy at all, but in fact playing fast and with improvisation was the best strategy in his arsenal against Spock's logical gameplay. It was hard to predict that Captain's moves, which interfered with a long-term, well-considered plan. Interfered enough that Spock did not always win their matches. "Besides, I was worried you and I would be fighting the whole time, not you and Bones."

"Then why did you accept me as your First Officer?" Sylar inquired.

"I didn't want a drone," Kirk said ardently, leaning towards the table again. "That's not how I operate. I needed someone who could question me, challenge me. You had that in spades. And we worked together well in the end. You trusted me when it came down to it on Nero's ship, and I trusted you. When you showed up on the bridge after I thought you'd gone to help set up the new Vulcan colony, I knew it felt right. I couldn't _not_ accept you."

Sylar digested Kirk's impassioned speech and watched as Kirk moved his queen. "Check!" Kirk called.

Sylar examined the board to see where he was in check and calculate the best way to escape. Kirk spoke up, "Why did _you_ come back and offer to be my First Officer?" _Checkmate_, Sylar thought, realizing he had walked straight into a verbal trap. He tapped into Spock's near eidetic memory to the brief conversation the Vulcan had with his older counterpart. Spock Prime had encouraged him to stay with the Enterprise, to befriend Kirk, and to do what he felt was right. It was strange advice, coming from a Vulcan, but Spock had been determined to take his older self's message to heart. _Two can play at this game,_ Sylar decided. Certain that the Captain was expecting a lengthy treatise on the merits and concerns of joining the Enterprise crew, he instead borrowed Kirk's own words; they were the truth for Spock, anyway. "It felt right."

Sylar looked up to see if his words had affected Kirk and he wasn't disappointed. The man was positively slack-jawed. "You constantly surprise me, Spock," Kirk said, sounding incongruously happy to discover there was still so much to Spock he had yet to learn.

"One does one's best," Sylar affirmed. He looked at the board and moved his bishop. "Checkmate."

---------------------------------------------

Sylar had no idea who the beautiful blonde woman on the colony was, despite the fact that she claimed to have known Spock back at the Academy. Apparently there were no strong memories of her to rely on. But when she offered to give him a tour of the grounds, he felt it would be impolitic to refuse. They needed information, anyway, because they had yet to determine how the colonists were so healthy when they were living in the midst of extreme radiation poisoning. There were no animals, not even insects. Yet the colonists were mysteriously, miraculously 'fit as a fiddle' to use McCoy's words.

Sylar engaged Leila in limited conversation, since she wasn't very forthcoming about the colony, which was what interested him. She just kept insisting that she could show him, so he followed respectfully. They came to a field of flowers as tall as cornstalks and she looked to Sylar expectantly. Sylar gave her a blank look (a Spock-shrug) but then was hit with a burst of fumes from a nearby flower.

He coughed and sneezed and rubbed his face. Did that flower just spurt something at him?

Sylar felt a bit woozy and disoriented, but it passed quickly and the feeling changed to one of a thrilling calm and happiness. He looked around the pasture with fresh eyes, appreciating the beauty of it in a way he hadn't appreciated since he was in his own body as Gabriel Gray.

He expressed his appreciation to Leila, "It's beautiful. Everything here is...beautiful! These flowers!" He grabbed one and handed it to her with a small bow. "You!" She gracefully accepted the flower and his compliment. Sylar grabbed her hand and pulled her along as he skipped merrily through the trees. "These trees! Beautiful! I understand now. I understand everything. It's wonderful," he said dazedly. He didn't try to suppress his emotions or expressions like he'd been doing all week. He smiled openly and plopped down on the soft grass next to a tall tree. He put his hand on it as if he could mind meld with the bark. He laughed aloud, and Leila sat down with him, pulling his head in her lap and mussing up his hair even as he kept laughing joyfully. His hand was still on the bark, but he wasn't getting to know the tree very well. He tried to listen to the tree's thoughts harder, but the bark was hard and trees don't think and bark is the sound a Terran dog makes and—

"Sp--o--ck," Leila said enticingly drawing out his name into multiple syllables though it had only one. How many syllables did she make out of one? Uhura would know. Uhura was a xenolinguist and she knew everything about syllables.

Leila had finally drawn his attention away from the tree by putting his hand in hers instead of on the bark. Sylar soaked up the new influx of human emotions. "You do not feel like a tree," he told her seriously. Her responding laughter sounded like a pearl of bells, and it was infectious. He started laughing again with her until he felt boneless and serene.

--------------------------------------------

When Sylar came to, the serenity he had felt laying in Leila's arms had abandoned him. His controls were frayed, the dam exploding in his mind. All the mental legwork he'd done in the last week was in shatters. Useless. The awe and happiness had morphed into uncontrolled adrenaline and he shot up from his seated position. His belt was vibrating, and it took him a minute to realize his communicator was buzzing and whistling. Leila was resting at his feet, and the buzzing was annoying. The whistling more so. He couldn't _think_, dammit. Not when the flood of repressed anger and the urge to inflict violence roared through his brain. He looked down and saw that his hands were glowing. If he didn't find release for this maelstrom he was going to go radioactive. Of all the abilities to retain...this wouldn't have been his first choice. Or second.

Sylar whirled around and harshly threw Leila's resting form up against the tree with his telepathy. She screamed and thrashed as he held her there with his mind, her nails digging into the bark as she struggled, the effect of the spores nullified by her fear and helplessness. Efficiently, Sylar raised his finger and pointed it at her head, slicing it open with precise focus. The screaming stopped abruptly. _Finally_.

Releasing the body, Sylar watched it slide to the grass, red and green mixing to make brown. He kneeled down and inhaled the power and understanding at his fingertips. Nothing was holding him back anymore. No logic hindering his biology now. He was as mother nature intended, raw and unleashed. He bent over towards the exposed brain.

-------------------------------------------

Sylar had not logically connected his altered state of mind with the flowers, and thus ran into them again as he traversed back to the base alone looking for more people to...study. He was sprayed twice by the flowers on his way, and their effect took hold of him as he found himself sitting in the middle of the field of flowers trance-like. He wasn't thinking about what had happened or what he was going to do. None of that mattered. He just wanted to sit here, among the flowers, enjoying his euphoria.

He frowned deeply as his belt started vibrating and singing again. This time, however, he reached for the communicator and answered. "Syl—Spock here," he tenuously held onto his alternate self's identity.

"My God, Spock! Where are you? I've—we've been worried about you. It's been hours!" Kirk's garbled voice came through loudly. "There's something strange going on here. And the crew has committed mutiny! No one will stay on the ship! I need your help."

Sylar tried to make sense of the Captain's words. "No, thank you," he replied politely, already sensing that his answer wasn't quite what the Captain had in mind.

"_No_ _thank_ _you_?! Spock, I. Need. Your. Help." Kirk paused, waiting for Sylar to say something.

"Well, if no one is on the ship, then you should come down here." _There_, Sylar thought, _that was logical, wasn't it? One must always be logical when dealing with the Captain. It's why he listens to us—me. _

There was another long pause.

"Uh, okay, Spock, you're right. I'll come down. But I need to get a few things." Kirk then proposed his plan, "Oh no!" He said dramatically. "I just remembered that I won't be able to carry down everything we'll need. Shucks! After all, it's just little old me up here. Would you come help me transport down the supplies for our short – I mean _forever_ – stay on the colony?"

"Certainly, Captain," Sylar replied. He got up from the flower patch and proceeded to the beam-up point. Within moments he was in the transport room of the Enterprise. "Are you ready?" he inquired innocently to Kirk. "Where are the objects with which you need my assistance to transport?" Sylar didn't see any boxes in the small room, but maybe Kirk needed his help to carry them from his quarters.

"Spock, listen to me. You're being influenced by the spores. From the flowers. They're responsible for the mysterious health of the colonists. You think you're fine, but you're not. You've got to snap out of it."

Sylar was shaking his head when Kirk ran up to him and grabbed him by the shoulders.

Smack!

The Captain had slapped him! Boiling with rage, Sylar slung a heavy fist into Kirk's stomach, using Kirk's own hold on him to make the Captain feel the brunt of the punch. Kirk exhaled a pained moan and fell back. Sylar stepped forward to follow the Captain's hunched form. He viciously kicked the Captain's side, aiming for the same place he'd punched him. Sylar reached out with his ability, prepared to finally satisfy his curiosity about the workings of Kirk's brain. The flowers' spores could destroy his controls, but they couldn't control his hunger. His need.

"Wait! Spock, wait!" Thinking Spock was (merely) about to hit him again, Kirk talked fast, but it wasn't to smooth things over. It was more abuse, verbal this time, as Kirk marshaled himself together for the attack. "All right you mutinous, disloyal, computerized half-breed, we'll see about you deserting my ship."

Momentarily shocked, Sylar replied, "The term 'half-breed' is somewhat applicable, but 'computerized' is inaccurate. A machine can be computerized, not a man." Then, Sylar nearly growled, "And please _desist _in this_._"

"What makes you think you're a man? You're an overgrown jack rabbit, an elf with a hyperactive thyroid."

"That's enough," Sylar said plaintively, slumping against the transport controls.

"Does she know what she's getting, Spock? A carcass full of memory banks who should be squatting on a mushroom instead of passing himself off as a man. You belong in a circus, Spock, not a starship – right next to the dog-faced boy."

"_Jim_," Sylar said lamely, "that's enough." Sylar's arms fell to his sides, his whole posture deflated as the effect of the spores wore off from Kirk's onslaught of negative emotions.

"Had enough? I never realized what it took to get under that thick hide of yours. Anyhow, I don't know what you're so mad about – it isn't every first officer who gets to belt his captain... several times."

Having fully regained himself, Sylar adjusted his blue uniform and, going one step further, reached up a hand to smooth down his disheveled hair. He stepped forward hesitantly, "Are you injured? Do you need assistance, Captain?"

Kirk patted himself down and replied, "Nah, all my bar brawling days taught me how to take a beating." He took a few steps before wincing and gripping his side. "Although, none of the bar fiends had your Vulcan strength."

"Indeed not, Captain. My offer for assistance still stands." But Sylar made no move to get closer to the Captain.

"_Stands_ better than I'm managing here, heh," Kirk joked weakly, leaning against the wall on the other side of the transporter room. "To summarize, we've gotta get everyone down there on the surface annoyed and upset enough to break the spell of the spores and get back to their stations."

"Yes, sir," Sylar agreed. "And I'm assuming you have a plan for this that doesn't involve picking a brawl with each and every person on the colony?"

Kirk spared him a grin. "Yep, you bet I do."

And Sylar obediently followed his commands until order on the Enterprise was restored.

------------------------------------------

Everyone in the mess hall during dinner was uncomfortable, Sylar noticed that evening. Either uncomfortable with something they'd said or done while influenced by the spores or physically uncomfortable from their brief stint of malnutrition or altercations with fellow officers. Sylar empathized with all of them, feeling rather sorry for himself in particular. Kirk was next to him, laughing uproariously at Doctor McCoy's regaling the small table of officers with tales of the crazy things he'd done on the planet's surface. The cheerful banter was making Sylar sick to his stomach. He'd failed. Utterly. A monster again, if Bennet and McCoy were right. He'd killed a girl and no one was going to call him out on it, things being in disarray following the reconstituting of the Enterprise crew and removal of the colonists to the ship for relocation. He'd almost killed the Captain, too. He remembered the look on Kirk's face as he thought Sylar was about to slug him again but in fact was about to slice open his head. No recovering from _that_ with a stumble and joke. Sylar almost jumped out of his chair when he felt an arm pat him with mild force on the back. Of course, it was the Captain.

"You with us, Spock?" Kirk asked, tone serious but his blue eyes glinted in amusement.

Sylar shrugged off Kirk's arm and his concern. "I am sitting at this table with you, eating my dinner, yes." Then he added for the benefit of the rest of the table, "If you would stop talking and laughing, you could also be eating your dinner."

McCoy, Kirk, Sulu and Scotty all guffawed at that, ignoring his advice at they continued to discuss the happenings of the latest nearly-botched but saved-at-the-last-minute-by-their-heroic-captain mission. Sylar prodded his vegetables until he could no longer resist the urge to depart to the quiet sanctuary of his quarters. "Captain, Officers," he said by way of leave and dumped his remaining food into the disposal, making his getaway.

He was hell-bent on meditating when he got back to his room, but instead found himself taking a quick sonic before flopping down on the bed. He was asleep within minutes.


	5. Light and fluffy

_Disclaimer: Heroes/StarTrek are not mine and you'll find no profit here. Unbeta'd. Enjoy!_

Chapter Notes: Tribble, anyone?

CHAPTER 5: LIGHT AND FLUFFY

"More tea?" Sylar nodded.

He'd been badgered into having tea in his quarters with Uhura, who cornered him on the bridge and said they hadn't hung out in a while. Spock kept accurate logs of his social engagements, so Sylar knew it was true. And he supposed '_badgered_' was a bit unfair. She'd merely requested his company and as her friend, he had to comply. Sylar knew Spock mostly only 'hung out' with the Captain, and that was at the Captain's behest, and Spock was on less friendly ground with most of the rest of the crew so far. He just wasn't a very approachable guy, being half-Vulcan. At first, the distance was out of the awkwardness of avoiding the subject of Vulcan's recent destruction around the ship's resident Vulcan. Word of his albeit provoked attack on Captain Kirk in response to the subject being raised did not help matters – though really that was about his _mother_, a touchy subject for all Federation species and a definitely 'no-no' for insults. Kirk just didn't care about Spock's glacial personality and was determined to make them 'bestest buds', and Uhura had always been attracted to Spock's stoic mystery ever since he was her Instructor for an advanced Intra/Inter-Species Communication class she'd taken as part of her xenolinguistics coursework. Sylar drank the proffered tea. Technically, it was _his_ tea, well, Spock's tea. An actual Vulcan blend that he kept stocked. Or had kept stocked. Uhura had asked if he'd wanted to save it, but what would he save it for? Tea was intended for drinking, and for sharing with friends. So they drank.

"Did you know that Terran whales communicate with sonar?" she asked, opening the conversation to an area that she knew might interest them both.

"I did," he replied, "and it is quite fascinating, though I did not give the research particular focus."

"And that's code for 'I know everything there is to know about it', right?" Uhura laughed, sipping the spiced tea.

"Certainly not," Sylar countered. He remembered he ought to return the earring to her. But Spock had held onto it for months now. That sentimentality didn't seem very Spock-like to him, but perhaps it had been lost and only recently found – that Spock had been intending to give it back to her as soon as possible. Betting on it, he got up and fetched it from the desk. He placed it on the table in front of Uhura's teacup. "Found this," he said.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Thanks! I'd been looking for this. I mean, I don't wear jewelry often, it's not strictly regulation, but once in a while." She smiled, and Sylar wanted to smile back but he knew Spock wouldn't have. And he'd been rebuilding his 'Spockisms', as he now called them, since the disaster of Omicron Ceti III. The Spockisms were mostly a list of 'dont's': don't smile or frown or make any facial expression other than raising or furrowing of the brow; don't touch people, it's rude for a touch telepath to do so and also distinctly unsettling; don't complain and don't lie, just state the facts. And so on. _Well, so much for lying_, Sylar considered, since that's pretty much been his prime occupation since he got on this ship.

Uhura reached out her hand towards Spock's hand and covered it gently against the cup he was holding. "I miss this," she told him softly. "I miss being friends. It's been too long. Just because we're not...dating...doesn't mean you have to avoid me."

"Thank you, Nyota," he told her earnestly. "I value your friendship." She was the only one besides the Captain and McCoy to really reach out to Spock, to try to bring out his human side. He might protest, but Sylar believed Spock secretly enjoyed the efforts of his tactile human friends. Since attending the Academy, Spock had been logging his study of his human colleagues, particularly focusing on expressions of human friendship. He catalogued hugs, smiles, jokes, laughs, teasing – half of these were often at one of the friend's expense. He was still trying to determine why being the butt of a joke or the recipient of a slap on the shoulder, both things that should make one feel antagonized, was in the context of a friendship considered a sign of camaraderie, of being liked and included. For all that he instructed a class that covered such material, _twice_, he still hadn't mastered it in his own social relationships. Sylar thought he could help him there. He just had to stifle his instinctive reactions to Spock's instinctive reactions by superceding them with his own instinctive reactions...ay, that was giving him a headache! Nyota's hand had dropped back to her own cup and they both sipped more tea.

Sylar immediately identified a flaw in his own brilliant plan to help Spock in his friendships. The flaw, regrettably, was that Sylar himself didn't have any real friends. Not ones he'd trust with his life everyday like on the Enterprise, at least. Sylar didn't like to think of life pre-Sylar, but even then most of his childhood friendships had taken backseat to the quiet, secluded lifestyle of an avid book-reader and watchmaker. Well, Sylar still had an edge on Spock because Sylar was human. At least in theory, unless he was really some sort of mutated monster...

Sylar stopped that train of thought. Pointless. What do friends talk about? Well, he knew they liked to gripe. Sylar had plenty to gripe about regarding the last mission, and could choose to share a few select experiences in this cathartic human ritual.

"I did not care for the last mission," Sylar began, already knowing that 'sharing feelings' was a Spockism 'don't' but going with it anyway. "The spores robbed me of my control. It was rather unpleasant."

Uhura's flawless face looked suitably surprised at Sylar's admission, but chimed in. "Absolutely. I wasn't in the initial landing party. But it spread to everyone, the plants were brought on board – even up the bridge where I was monitoring communications."

"Yes. I was the first one the Captain found and 'cured'," Sylar allowed himself to inject some sarcasm into the last part.

Uhura laughed but then her face hardened a bit. "Kirk thinks he's such a cowboy badass. I respect him, now, but he sure is exasperating. Infuriating, really. He's so cavalier about everything, going on gut instincts all the time and disregarding protocol. And yet, just like in this last mission, he somehow pulls it altogether and saves the day." She tilted her head, her long, sleek pony-tail swinging behind her. "I guess that makes him pretty talented. Or really lucky."

"It would be better for all of us on the Enterprise if it were not luck," Spock said. He quirked his eyebrow. "After all, luck runs out."

She smiled, and they clinked their teacups together in the air. "To talent!" Uhura proclaimed.

-----------------------------------------------

No, it had to be dumb luck, Sylar amended his opinion later that day. The Captain had failed to report to Sickbay after Sylar had, well, beat him up, apparently deciding he could take care of himself. He couldn't. McCoy found out. And now Sylar was getting admonished by a severely irate CMO.

He defended himself, "It is not my responsibility to escort the Captain to his required destinations. I had assumed he received proper treatment for the...altercation." _There_, Sylar thought, _I'll pin it back on you._

"An archaic ice-pack is not equivalent to tissue regeneration on the bio-bed." McCoy went on. He rounded on Kirk, who had the misfortune of coming around the bend of the corridor at that very minute. Kirk made an abortive spin in the opposite direction, but McCoy grabbed him and stuck a hypo in his neck.

"Bones!" Kirk whined. McCoy and Sylar ignored him. McCoy gave Sylar a pointed look and then redirected himself to Kirk. "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a mind reader! I don't know when you're hurt. Until you start limping, that is."

"Bones, I thought you could cure a rainy day?" Kirk whined again.

"Well, I'd have to know that it's raining, wouldn't I?" McCoy replied.

Kirk stared at McCoy. "Touché, Bones. Touché."

A whistle sounded and Uhura's voice came over the comm system, "Captain Kirk, we're getting a distress signal."

"Continue," Kirk stated.

"It's a Priority 1 distress call from space station K-7, in the middle of shared Klingon and Federation space."

"Respond that we're on our way. Tell Sulu to set the course, then give the station our ETA." Kirk turned to McCoy and said neatly, "Sorry Bones, can't stay and chat. Gotta go save people. You know how it is."

Sylar saw his way out from the doctor's undesirable company as well. "I'll join you on the bridge, Captain."

The two men hurried off to catch the turbolift before any more hypos or threats could be hurled their way.

-------------------------------------------------

"That's misuse of Federation code," Kirk argued loudly. "You cannot use the highest distress call for..." He kicked a bag on the floor "guarding grain."

The undersecretary of agriculture disagreed, "But Captain, this isn't grain. This is Quadrotriticale! It's _essential_ for Sherman's Planet. And with Klingons taking shore leave here, it's imperative to have it well guarded."

Kirk just rolled his eyes. "It's neutral territory, undersecretary. The Klingons can get drunk in your bars as well as in theirs."

"Quadrotriticale _is_ really an important grain-like substance, Sir." Sylar noted.

"Not helping, Spock," Kirk warned. He threw up his hands as the undersecretary continued to gawk at him. "Fine! I'll post two guards. Everyone else who's not on duty can take shore leave on the surface. They can keep an eye on your Klingon guests."

--------------------------------------------

Sylar was stationed to the bridge for most of the day, and after his shift he went to the mess and found many crew members sitting around the tables petting little furballs – furballs that were themselves on the tables when they weren't in crew members' hands. _How unsanitary,_ Sylar thought.

"Here, Mr. Spock," Uhura called him to the middle of the throng. Sylar noted with glee how many people moved out of his way to give him free passage to the center. Gloating over his intimidating stride, he was not anticipating Uhura to suddenly push one of the furballs into _his_ hands. "It's a tribble, Spock," Uhura informed him. Sylar felt about a dozen pairs of eyes on him. He looked down at the little mass of fur in his hands. It started...cooing, a little trill. Sylar tried not to react. Then, the room resounded with "oooh's" and "aah's" when their stoic First Officer finally caved and began to pet the little purring creature.

"Aaw, they even like Mr. Spock," someone called out.

"It's just the Klingons they don't like!" said another officer.

"And he likes the Tribble, too!" someone even braver pronounced.

Admitting defeat to overwhelming cuteness, Sylar continued to pet the Tribble in his hands even as he began inspecting it. At least it didn't yip like Mr. Muggles. "It seems the purring has a soothing effect on all who hold it," Spock commented. He glanced around and people were still staring at the sight of him petting the Tribble. Frowning slightly, he thrust the creature back at Uhura. He decided he could eat dinner later and got out of mess hall quickly.

He ran into McCoy, who was holding...a Tribble.

"Doctor," Sylar acknowledged him.

"Aren't these the greatest little guys?" asked McCoy, attention fully on the Tribble in his arms.

"I assume the question is rhetorical," Sylar said. "But how many are on this ship?"

McCoy put the Tribble on his blue-shirted shoulder and nuzzled it. "I don't know, come to think of it. Uhura bought one on the surface. And then there were a dozen. And now, they're everywhere."

"Perhaps it would be wise to investigate why they are propagating so quickly before things get out of hand." No one was going to accuse _him_ of losing his edge just because there were some admittedly adorable furballs taking over the ship.

"Yeah," McCoy agreed distractedly.

Sylar knew what he had to do to get the doctor to focus on the problem. He reached over and scooped up McCoy's Tribble. The doctor glared at him and frowned. "Geez, Spock. If you wanted a Tribble, there's plenty more where that one came from."

"Affirmative. And I'd like you to find out why." Sylar reckoned the effective force of his command was reduced 24.3% by presence of the happily trilling Tribble now residing on his own shoulder.

"I'll do it!" McCoy concurred and headed off to the medical lab.

Sylar decided to get his dinner 'carryout' before following up on McCoy's endeavors.

-----------------------------------

"They're born pregnant," was McCoy's diagnosis to the First Officer and Captain of the Enterprise three hours later in a meeting in the CMO's office. "And now they're everywhere, in all the plumbing and piping of the ship. All the maintenance tubes, the computer panels, just...everywhere! They're actually _clogging_ our systems!"

"If they're all over our ship, that means they could be all over that damned grain, too!" Kirk exclaimed.

"Do you mean the Quadrotriticale?" Sylar asked.

"Yes, I mean that. Come on, we three better go down there and see what happened."

When the three of them beamed down and opened the secured Quadrotriticale containers, Tribbles spilled out onto the deck all over their feet. The undersecretary of agriculture cried out in horror. "The Quadrotriticale! It's gone! Eaten by Tribbles?!"

"Well, at least it wasn't the Klingons. That would be a diplomatic nightmare," Kirk told him. But the undersecretary was not appeased. "This is your fault, Kirk! I told you to guard it diligently, not a measly two guards."

"Jim, look at this," McCoy said, nudging some of the Tribbles. "They're all dead."

Kirk's eyes narrowed. "How?"

McCoy ran his tricorder over the mass of Tribbles and spat out, "Poison."

Sylar drew the logical conclusion. "The Quadrotriticale heading for Sherman's Planet was poisoned. If it had reached its destination, all the inhabitants would have died. Someone is plotting to disrupt Federation occupation of K-7."

"Who's responsible for this?" the undersecretary wondered, aghast at the barely avoided catastrophe. He'd take dead Tribbles over the potential alternatives any day.

Just then, Kirk's communicator buzzed. "Kirk, here."

"Aye, Captain. We're having a wee bit of a scuffle down here."

"Scotty?" Kirk spoke into the communicator.

"Aye, we had a bit o problem with some of the Klingon patrons, Sir. I know I was supposed to keep the peace, but we were provoked, we were!" Scotty explained apologetically. "And the Tribbles hate the Klingons, by the way, Sir. They freeze up and don't do their little purring song."

"I hope your fight wasn't over Tribbles," Kirk said with a snort.

"No, Sir. Our dignity!" Scotty replied, a little drunkenly.

"Alright, Mr. Scott. We'll handle it from here." Kirk turned to the undersecretary but then looked past him to the undersecretary's aide who had trailed into the grain room only moments before. "You there," he addressed him, "Where have you been?"

"I, uh, huh? Right here!" the man spluttered.

Sylar could tell the aide was not going to be forthcoming and doubted the veracity of his words, so he pulled McCoy aside and whispered, "Doctor, do you still have a Tribble on you?" When McCoy shuffled his feet, eying the mountaing of dead Tribbles, Sylar gave an insufferable sigh and clarified, "A _live _one?"

McCoy nodded and handed the Tribble to Sylar who skipped petting it in order to waltz up to the aide and fling the Tribble into the man's arms. "Ai! Get it off!" the man yelled. And the Tribble froze. No purring here.

"Fascinating," McCoy said to the group. "The Tribbles always purr in human arms, even half humans," the last part he directed to Sylar.

The aide immediately threw the Tribble down, but Kirk and the undersecretary held his arms while McCoy ran a medical tricorder over him. "This man isn't human at all. He's a Klingon! Medically altered to look like a man."

"You poisoned the grain, didn't you!" the undersecretary accused, betrayed by his assistant.

Understanding he wasn't going to get away, the aide confessed. "Yes. It is to the Klingons' advantage that we control this space station, not the Federation. This was a way to get you to leave."

"And it would have cost hundreds to thousands of lives," Kirk said harshly, dismayed at the turn of events.

"The loss of _human_ lives was considered a suitable sacrifice," the Klingon aide insisted.

"Take him away!" the undersecretary called to his guards.

"We'll make sure both the Federation and the Klingons hear about this premeditated strike," Kirk reassured him.

"You have my thanks, Kirk" was the undersecretary's reply.

Back in the transporter room, Kirk was feeling more at ease already. "Let's get these furballs off my ship, Bones."

"Yes, Jim. Right away," McCoy fervently agreed.

"That was some quick thinking, Mr. Spock," Kirk complimented.

"And your performance was...adequate as well, Captain. As was yours, McCoy," Spock told them graciously before exiting the room.

Kirk smirked at McCoy. "Be sure to leave one Tribble on board, Bones."

"Jim?"

"In Spock's quarters!"

"Aye, Jim!"


	6. Discovered?

_Disclaimer: Heroes/StarTrek are not mine and you'll find no profit here. Unbeta'd. Enjoy!_

Chapter Notes: TOS "Amok Time", Sylar's remix

Also, more chapters are written but I've been unable to upload them. So when it works again, look for more chapters - yay!

CHAPTER 6: DISCOVERED?

"So, I was talking with our _mutual friend_," Kirk said offhandedly during their second chess game. "You know, the Ambassador. On the new Vulcan colony."

"And?" Sylar prompted, uncertain why Kirk seemed to be holding back. The man was positively restrained in his behavior this evening. It would have been refreshing if it wasn't so perplexing. That and Sylar was nervous to be apprised that Kirk was keeping in touch with another version of Spock. It's much easier to pretend to be someone when you are the only version of that someone.

"We were talking about you. Your age. And, uh, Vulcan stuff." Kirk swallowed and looked at him expectantly.

"Really, Captain. _Vulcan stuff? _You excel at mincing words," Sylar ignored Kirk's pointed look and moved his knight to the middle level. This time he was playing 'white.'

"Spock, don't make this difficult. Wait, I mean, I take that back. I _know_ it's difficult, and that Vulcans don't talk about it. Ever. Well, maybe once. I don't know! But the Ambassador was adamant that I press the issue in order to prevent the possibility of certain events repeating. So, I guess, what I'm asking is, how are you feeling? Are you feeling upset? Anxious? Out of your depth? A desperate need to, oh I dunno, return to a planet that no longer exists?" Kirk's rambling finally stopped.

"What are you talking about? I'm perfectly fine," Sylar insisted. He genuinely had no idea what Kirk was on about.

"Really," Kirk stated flatly. It wasn't a question. Sylar gave him a confused look. "Fine, keep your secrets. For now. But I'm setting a course for the Vulcan colony." Kirk settled back into his chair and folded his arms. At Sylar's continued silence, Kirk spoke up again, "I honestly believed you would be able to talk to me about this, even the little you do know."

"I would if I knew what you were alluding to," Sylar insisted again. He was confidant that he had learned every important detail about Spock from the meld, the audio logs, and the memory-laden objects in his quarters. Nothing suggested a need to visit the Vulcan colony, nothing to suggest Spock was ever concerned with his age. "I can think of no reason why we would divert course from Altair VI to go to the Vulcan colony." Sylar paused thoughtfully. "Unless you want to visit my counterpart face-to-face?"

"That's your conjecture? That I would alter course from a vital diplomatic event that we've been ordered to attend – on_ time_, may I add – to go hang out with an older, alternate version of you?" Kirk sounded half baffled and half angry, his red flushed face contrasting with the green of his wrap-around shirt.

Sylar regarded him. "Do not direct your anger at me if you are at a loss to explain your own actions with regard to the navigation of this ship, Captain." Even as he said these words, Sylar regretted them. Maybe there _was_ something he missed. Maybe he should stop putting his foot in his mouth. Just because he'd been a _great_ Spock so far didn't mean he couldn't screw it all up at any moment. He wasn't Noah Bennet, not a Company man. He didn't maneuver through the world by spinning lies and half truths to those closest to him. His normal approach was a little more direct. And he wasn't Spock. He didn't want to be. He was Sylar, and he had begun to think of plans for his return to his own body and life. Plans to improve it.

Kirk leapt up from the table, bumping it and jostling the pieces that weren't locked down. "Have it your way, then," he grumbled. "I'm going to the bridge to change course. For your own good." And with that, he left Syler sitting at the unfinished chess game in Kirk's quarters.

With Kirk gone, Sylar had a golden opportunity to peruse the Captain's quarters and see what he could learn that he could put to his advantage. If it came down to it, if the cards in his hand were revealed, it'd help to have a little blackmail material. It seemed, however, that all the really juicy incidents in Kirk's past were already well-known. His public record spoke to that enough. Public brawls. Arrests. Stealing. Destruction of property. Cheating. And then he redeemed himself by becoming the hero of Earth. A fearless leader who didn't accept a no-win situation. As for discretion, he didn't seem to know the meaning of the word. Spock's logs listed every time he or another crew member had to make excuses for the wayward Captain who'd found a few moments alone aboard or planet-side with one (or more) of the locals. But, as Sylar glided through the cabin picking up knickknacks as he went, there was no evidence that his discretion had ever failed with a member of his own crew. Stumped, Sylar sat down. No use tiring himself by dragging memories out of everything in the room. He tried hacking into Kirk's computer to hear the audio chat between the Captain and Spock Prime, but his security clearance was denied as expected. He might as well go up to the bridge or back to his quarters. He decided on the latter. Best to comb the room to sponge up any information that might pertain to the Captain's abnormal behavior this evening.

------------------------------------------------

Sylar was approaching Sickbay the next morning to speak with Doctor McCoy about an issue with the tricorders (he thought he'd see if they could get them to detect other non-carbon based lifeforms like they had done with the Horta) when he heard two voices coming through loud and clear from McCoy's office. Well, loud and clear to Sylar. He stopped dead in his tracks and used his special hearing abilities to eavesdrop on the Captain and McCoy.

"...And he had the nerve to tell me I don't know how to run my own ship!" Kirk was complaining in full voice.

"Well, why didn't you just come out and say what you and the Ambassador had discussed. What did he call it, _pond far_?"

"_Pon farr_," Kirk corrected. Sylar silently vowed to go look it up as soon as possible, since he'd never heard of it before. There were things in the mind meld with Spock that he wasn't privy to. This could have been one of them.

"And there's nothing in the medical books about it, either. Not even the xeno-focused ones or the translated Vulcan ones. They're a pretty tight-lipped bunch. Did he tell you more than the name of it?" _So much for looking it up_, Sylar thought dejectedly.

"Yeah, it has to do with Vulcan _mating_."

"Mating?"

_Mating_?

"He said it was a matter of biology. Apparently, when the Ambassador went through it the first time it came out of nowhere. It's why he wasn't prepared to handle it. Not only had it come later than for most Vulcans, but he'd hoped to be spared it by virtue of his hybrid status. Obviously, he wasn't. It's a mating cycle that happens for Vulcan males every seven years, and their blood burns and they have to go to Vulcan to bond and mate. Or he. Will. Die. That and they refuse to talk about it. Ever. It's like some big Vulcan secret or something."

"Mate or die? So we'll take him to the Vulcan colony. I can't believe the most logical race in the universe can die from this," McCoy said, sounding shocked. _You and me both! _Sylar thought worriedly.

"Yeah, well, last time, I mean old Spock's first time, his intended wife rejected him and made me and Spock fight – to the death! I only survived because you hypo'd me with something to make it seem like I was dead. After he thought he killed me, Spock came out of it – yeah, they go batshit crazy or something during it – and was devastated. It was, all in all, a massive mishandled mess."

"All alliteration aside, Jim, has Spock been showing signs of this oncoming mate or die cycle? Because he hasn't seemed out of sorts to me."

"No," Kirk said distressed. "And that's even more worrisome. I mean, the Ambassador seemed to think he's already, well, late. Like that any moment he's going to snap and lose it. It's as much about the mind bonding as the mating. That's why I approached Spock and why I've altered the course for the colony. But he really seemed clueless. I just don't know, Bones. I trust Spock, but is it really him? There's no hiding _Pon Farr_..."

Sylar sucked in a short breath at Kirk's statements. Crisis one: Kirk, and Bones by default, suspect something. Crisis two: a quick internal scan told him that he was _not_ undergoing this _Pon Farr_. Crisis two gave him two immediate feelings. One, it was immensely relieving – he'd been worried he was losing his identity to Spock, and with the affinity for warmth he'd worried it was going to go farther than that. Two, it was horrifying in that it presented a serious obstacle. He could address both crises if he faked going through the Vulcan mating cycle. But while Sylar had congratulated himself on being a good half-Vulcan actor so far, he wasn't sure he could pull off this just based on the information he'd heard. He could act uncontrolled and crazy to a T, but would it work? Would it convince them he was Spock? Or did he forgo the _Pon Farr_ act and chalk it up to a difference in the timeline? A final option occurred to him but he dismissed it. Telling them who he really was had to be out of the question. The fact that he'd considered it all made him think that maybe he really was losing it. Before he could be seen spying he skulked back to his quarters.

------------------------------------

Sylar hadn't come to a decision about what he was going to do before he was slated for bridge duty. All he managed to accomplish was a shower, a shave, and a cup of spiced tea. He yanked on the black undershirt, the blue science uniform, and his boots, and ran a comb through short black hair. If his bangs grew any longer they were going to cover his eyes. Did they have a ship's barber or something? He berated himself for his vanity, realizing that he was missing his own less green-tinged face in the mirror – though at least his eyes were right. He weighed putting on the full away-team belt, but decided instead to just stick his phaser in the top of the back pants. These black trousers really needed pockets. Sylar knew he was in trouble. He was on the brink of being discovered and he was just walking right into it. At least he'd get thrown into the brig with an immaculate appearance.

Everyone was already at their stations when Sylar walked onto the bridge.

"We're wery close to New Wulcan's orbit, Captain," Chekov reported.

"Captain, the Admiral is hailing again. He's still demanding to know why we've diverted course from Altair VI," came Uhura's voice from communications.

"I'll handle it, Lieutenant," Kirk told her, but he was looking at Sylar. Sylar wished he had Peter's invisibility.

"Go to the transporter room and prepare to beam down," Kirk ordered him.

_Can't we skip it? _Sylar wanted to say. Even if he tried to fake the _Pon Farr_, his identity would be revealed if he bonded with another telepath. Sylar could admit that he contemplated following the bonding ceremony with a murder. That would keep his future bondmate quiet. But he suspected that she'd reveal him before he even got a chance. Hell, for all he knew, the wedding involved melding with the officiator and he'd be revealed even sooner. Either way, he didn't relish the thought of beaming down to a planet full of telepaths.

"Spock," the Captain addressed him again. "I said prepare to beam down."

"No, Captain," Sylar said firmly. "I will not."

At that, Kirk rose from the Captain's chair and stalked towards Sylar's station. He stared the half-Vulcan down even as the whole bridge crew watched, fearing another blowout. "Yes. You. Will," Kirk punctuated each word but then added more softly, "I'm doing this for you, my friend. Why can't you understand that?"

Sylar carefully chose his words, aware that the other officers were listening and that this was his only chance to hide his identity as Sylar. "I do understand, Captain, what you are trying to do. But the onset of this...biological cycle...that you have snuck behind my back to speak to the Ambassador about, even knowing that it is something Vulcans consider extremely taboo to discuss, is not a mathematical equation. I cannot predict when it will occur. I accept your unbidden warnings about it happening in the future, and I assure you I will be prepared, but nothing is happening right now. I do not need to go to the colony, and I do not want to speak of it further. Can you understand _that_?"

The standoff between Captain and First Officer continued for a few moments as Kirk pondered Sylar's words. "Set course back to Altair VI," Kirk ordered at last. Sylar heard Sulu mutter to himself something about 'Captains who can't make up their minds' and saw Chekov give him a swift kick under the console to shut him up. Kirk was still standing at his station, but Sylar allowed himself a reasonably deep sigh of relief. _I think he bought it_.

"Captain, Admiral Komack is on the line again, Sir," Uhura announced, breaking the tense silence.

"Just tell him we're back on course," Kirk said as he made his way back to his command chair. He glanced back at the science station, and Sylar didn't need to be a telepath to know what Kirk was thinking: 'I'm watching you.'


	7. Brains

_Disclaimer: I still don't claim any rights to Heroes or StarTrek and have nothing to report to the bank. Unbeta'd. Enjoy!_

CHAPTER 7: BRAINS!

Sylar woke up feeling restless. Groggily, he dragged himself out of bed and into the fresher. He was overheating. He turned on the faucet to splash some cool water on his face and upper body and blindly reached for a towel, patting his face dry. Still holding the towel to his face, Sylar did a double-take as he saw his reflection in the mirror. _His_ reflection as himself! Not Spock's visage but his own human one, rangy eyebrows, scruffy cheeks and all.

He must have reverted sometime in the night, but he had no conscious memory of doing so. Sylar concentrated on shape-shifting back into Spock and it was done in seconds. He checked his face over in the mirror to make sure nothing was amiss. Pointy ears. Slanted brows. Pale complexion. Satisfied, he went about getting ready for duty at the...he checked his schedule...science labs today. Feeling reckless, he used his telekinesis to multi-task, bringing things to him at ease. He was still on a high from getting away with his identity secured the day before. His secret had been mere minutes from being revealed, and somehow he'd managed to turn the whole thing around. Make it a trust issue, and Kirk was suckered in because he _wanted_ to trust Spock. This Spock. His First Officer and friend.

Sylar whistled as he moved about his quarters. The tune was upbeat and energetic, just like Sylar was feeling now that he was ready for another day on the Enterprise. If any of his subordinates in the science labs asked him anything he didn't know, he'd just glare at them in all his Vulcan glory and tell them it was their job to figure it out for themselves. He remembered to stop whistling just as he entered the corridor, and walked lightly to the labs.

Two hours later and Sylar was terribly bored. Monitoring the science labs was easily as dull as he'd feared. And more so. His good mood had soured considerably, and he wasn't interested in investing himself in any of the current projects found in the lab. Perhaps it was a little single-minded of him, but he could live with it. He played with the idea of taking a break in the mess hall, but the only people he'd probably end up talking to were Kirk, McCoy, or Uhura if they were there. And he would rather have a break from them. Sylar wasn't used to this much forced interaction with people, especially not the same people day in and day out. Being the resident Vulcan made it a bit simpler, since no one expected him to make a real effort towards social outreach, and he wasn't going to go out of his way to refute the notion today.

Sylar was still internally pouting when lunch time finally came around, so he took his plate of vegetables and fruit to his quarters. He'd stuck to food he was familiar with so far, but risked a few unknown legumes today. Vegetables were vegetables, anyway. He was just staring to crunch on some weird lavender-colored stalk when his door chime buzzed. It was McCoy.

"Good afternoon, Doctor," he said formally, inviting him in.

"Sorry, it looks like I interrupted your lunch, Spock. If that's what you call a pound and a half of crap someone yanked out the ground," McCoy said in his usual teasing manner, taking in the table settings. "Please, go sit down and eat, man. No need to stand on ceremony with me. I'm just here for a short chat."

Sylar complied and picked up the purple stalk again, but didn't bite it. He was waiting for McCoy to get on with it. With the 'chat' that Sylar was surprised hadn't happened at breakfast earlier. McCoy was here to check up on him and was using the guise of visiting his personal quarters to make it seem less like a formal examination and more like friendly visit. To confirm this sentiment exactly, McCoy started out with, "This is just a friendly visit between friends, Spock."

"Yes, Doctor," Sylar agreed mildly.

"I, well, I had a discussion about you with the Captain the other day. I am sure that is an unsettling to you, but I thought you should know."

"Thank you for informing me," Sylar replied, putting down the purple vegetable and picking up a more familiar green one.

"I'm sure Jim's already asked you today, but you sure you're okay? It's none of my business – wait, who am I kidding? I'm your damned physician! Of course it's my business. Anyway, I know about the Vulcan _Pon Farr_ cycle and just want to remind you that, as your doctor, you should tell me if you do start experiencing any symptoms. Some of them might be able to be medicated until, well, they can no longer be mediated." McCoy's voice warmed a few degrees as he continued gruffly, "I don't pry into your affairs for my _own_ health, you know."

"I am aware of the fact. Is that all?" Sylar asked. He chose not to correct any of McCoy's misinformation, though there was plenty of it.

"Yes," McCoy answered succinctly. "Thanks for the chat, Spock. Perky as always."

"It was no hardship, Doctor," Sylar told him, letting his eyebrow lift just slightly.

"Right, well, see you later," McCoy said, already halfway out the door. Sylar thought he heard him mutter "Vulcans!" under his breath.

Sylar finished his lunch but was still hungry. He was still craving something and he was too stubborn to admit it wasn't food. So he made up his mind to covertly grab some dessert from the mess. He didn't think Spock would appreciate coming back to find out that everyone knew he liked ice cream with sprinkles.

---------------------------------------

Sylar staggered to the fresher in pain to cup handfuls of hot water to his freezing mouth. It was so cold it was burning! Apparently, sensitivity to cold applied to his insides as well as his outside, and ice cream was unfortunately relegated to the 'don't' list. Sylar was relieved he'd brought the cold treat back to his quarters and avoided undue embarrassment for something he should have already known, but he was irritated that he couldn't enjoy such a simple luxury.

Giving up on the idea of transferring his hunger to food, Sylar entertained the possibility of a mind meld as part of the solution. He knew Spock normally reserved the meld for business-only ventures, but other Vulcans used their touch telepathy for recreation as well. It was a way to get past their own cultural barriers against contact and enjoy the comfort that contact with other living beings could provide. Alien race or not, Sylar imagined that the strict Vulcan mores against touch were ingrained in them from birth so that they wouldn't take advantage of the benefits of telepathy too often but instead use it in moderation and within certain guided parameters. Spock, living amongst psi-null humans, was especially cautious and reserved for the purpose of protecting not so much himself as the unshielded humans around him. Sylar knew from experience that a connection with a compatible person was a fascinating experience and could be a balm to his soul. He also knew instinctively that the opposite was true as well. With these touch telepathic abilities, being smothered by a large number of people, like sometimes happens at a concert or club, would be exceedingly overwhelming to the point of a painful headache or worse.

As Sylar wasn't trying to damage his own brain, he needed to find one person to meld with. Someone who wouldn't spill his secret if Sylar wasn't able to hide it successfully. Perhaps a stranger on shore leave could suffice. Sylar knew Spock would find that abhorrent. Spock never complained but also never enjoyed the melds he completed with strange beings on missions for StarFleet. Sylar himself thought the meld with the Horta was repugnant, well-ordered thoughts or not. It just wasn't right to meld with a silicon slug! Sylar briefly considered Kirk as a candidate, as Spock had melded with him before in the line of duty and found his mind suitable ('dynamic' was his descriptor). But Kirk was already suspicious of him and he couldn't risk it. Uhura might work, but again he feared she knew Spock too well. And the problem with telepathy was that it wasn't exactly mind reading. Specifically, it was a two-way connection. The one initiating the telepathy was as vulnerable as the other. That left random crew members or some planet-side pickup, the primary problem with both being that Sylar feared his lack of vested interest in the person would trigger the other way of feeding the hunger. He did not want to end up lashing out at the unsuspecting victim. The meld had worked to assuage the hunger for tinkering with Spock's brain back in the Company cell, so Sylar thought he wasn't going out on a limb to think that another mind connection would keep him from slicing open another skull. Understanding how a person's brain is designed via a meld was not so different from figuring it out from the brain's physical structure than one might suppose. The similarities convinced Sylar that this could work, if only he got up the guts to meld with someone before he killed someone instead.

------------------------------------------

Space was vast. Everyone said it, but the truth of it was hitting Sylar hard as he stood on the observation deck watching the stars go by while the Enterprise raced through the galaxy. Even at a high warp speed, it took forever to get anywhere. And a starship with a 5-year commission couldn't afford to be high speed warping constantly. Scotty's precious nacelles in engineering just couldn't handle the stress. Sylar had lucked out so far that they'd gone from mission to mission without too much down time, but even after a lull in activity of just a day he was restless and bored. He ascertained that the crew was not due for shore leave any time soon, having just had the chance at space station K-7 with the Tribbles despite the fact that it had been cut short by the diplomatic incident they'd stumbled into.

Sylar wasn't surprised when he saw Kirk enter the observation desk. He knew Kirk had left him alone since their fight on the bridge out of respect for his sensibilities, but it was a tricky feat for the First Officer and the Captain not to even accidentally run into each other in a 24 hour period giving their overlapping duties. In fact, he was probably behind on some PADD signatures. Sylar had discovered quickly upon joining the Enterprise that one of the duties of the Lieutenant Commander that took up the most time was signing off on nearly everything that happened on the ship. Someone wanted to sign out the rec room for a few hours? He needed Spock's signature. Someone blew a fuse in the botany department? Spock had to sign. The women's engineering uniform skirts were so short that every time they bent over the equipment their skirt rode up and thus needed to be lengthened? Somehow that fell under Spock's jurisdiction too. The only good thing was that almost all of the Captain's actions also had to be signed off by his First Officer, and Sylar had frequently contemplated not signing off on some simple request just to mess with him. When Kirk had come to him with a PADD authorizing his requisition of 3 new Captain's shirts (of three different styles), Sylar had merely raised his eyebrow and told him that maybe he should take better care of his shirts since he seemed to keep losing them. Kirk had howled in laughter so forcefully that he'd started choking. Sylar had felt gratified that his joke had done its job. Sylar couldn't yet tell from Kirk's demeanor whether he was in a joking mood (usually) or not this evening.

"When Bones found out I still hadn't talked to you yet, he threatened early vaccinations," was Kirk's introduction as he came to stand by Sylar and stare at the stars.

"A scary prospect, indeed," Sylar said agreeably, turning to look at the back of Kirk's head.

"Yeah," Kirk said. "So, I know Vulcans think apologies are unnecessary and irrelevant, but I wanted to tell you I'm sorry for doubting you. I've never had reason not to trust your words. And I guess you were right that I was giving to much credence to the Ambassador's own experiences that in no way predetermine your own."

Sylar did a little cartwheel in his mind for joy. Out loud he merely said, "Apology accepted, Jim."

At Sylar's deliberate use of his first name, which Kirk had been trying to get him to use more often since the day Spock had become his First Officer (peppered with irrational arguments like 'and if Bones does it why can't you?'), Kirk flashed one of his infamous grins and said in a self-congratulatory manner, "Anytime, Spock, anytime."

Sylar had to stop looking at Kirk's head. He either wanted to meld with Kirk and examine the inner workings of his mind or he wanted Kirk to leave the room. Using his better judgment, Sylar nodded to the Captain and opted to remove himself from the situation. Kirk didn't have an ability, so Sylar was perturbed at his own desire to explore Kirk's brain. Would this happen with anyone he let get close to him? If so, it didn't make him a very good candidate for a lifelong friend. Friends have to be kept _alive_ to be considered friends. And Sylar just wasn't sure he was cut out for it. He was smart enough to recognize that his compassion for his compatriots on the Enterprise was an excellent motivator to control his natural tendencies. But was he beginning to wonder if it would be enough.

---------------------------------------

It was not enough, Sylar concluded, pacing back and forth in his quarters the next morning, stretching sore muscles. Not nearly enough, according to his actions in the middle of the previous night. His extremely horrible regrettable actions that he was just now trying to sort out.

He'd woken up at 0300 as himself, not as Spock. He'd dressed in black pants and a black tunic, grabbed his utility belt, and left his quarters. Like the predator he was, he'd stalked the halls looking for an opportunity. The Gamma shift crew was always sparse compared to Alpha or Beta shift, so Sylar didn't run into many people.

His ears attuned, it didn't take a special ability to hear the raucous, drunken laughter coming from one of the rec rooms. Forming a vague strategy, he headed there and stepped into the room with deadly intent. Several crew members had been participating in some sort of drinking game and were in various states of inebriation. That suited Sylar's plans just fine. He walked up to one of the drunk crewmen and offered to help him get back to his quarters. The man accepted his assistance and Sylar half-carried the blubbering man towards the exercise rooms, which were rarely if ever utilized at night.

He robotically pushed the man into one of the training booths and slammed the door shut behind them. His heart rate accelerating, Sylar tried to think ahead of what he'd do with the body if he did this here. Aboard the ship. Right under their noses. Were airlocks monitored closely? Did he have an override code for them?

His mind racing as fast as his pulse, Sylar could not see a way to accomplish his goal. The man was just lying on the mat, hardly aware of what was going on and no idea who he was with.

Sylar could still back out of this.

He had to decide and decide quickly.

With a burst of energy, Sylar let out a scream and punched the wall brutally, his fist glowing with power. His fist bloodied momentarily before healing itself. Following that physical release, Sylar exited the exercise area and speed-walked single-mindedly back to his quarters, encountering no one in his path.

When he finally entered his room, he locked the door and dropped to his knees in agony. He hadn't bothered to mediate in a few days, thinking he was handling things just fine without it. Clearly he was mistaken. He hurriedly placed a few candles around the room and lit them, turning out all other lights and inhaling the candles' calming scents as he rearranged himself to be sitting.

He forced himself to take a deep breath.

And a second.

And a third.

He threw himself in the mental activity of rebuilding his levee, driving huge rocks at it and puttying up the porous sections. He lost track of how long he spent in the pursuit, but finally he had worked himself into exhaustion and ended the mediation, only to pass out there on the floor in the middle of the dark room, the candles long since died out.

Back in the present, the harsh artificial lights had automatically turned on in the morning when Sylar didn't wake up in time to get ready for his appointments. Sylar was pacing instead of preparing, his thoughts circling on the events and ramifications of the night before.

He needed to pull himself together enough to end this madness. Enough to figure out how to end this little experiment of living Spock's life. Sylar didn't want it. He wanted to go back. And he knew just who could help him.

Shape-shifting into Spock for what, he realized with no little relief, may be the last time, Sylar made his way to the Captain's quarters.


	8. The search for Spock

_Disclaimer: Checking, checking, nope! I still don't own Heroes or StarTrek and earn nothing by this, except your welcomed reviews. Unbeta'd. Enjoy!_

CHAPTER 8: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK

Kirk opened the door immediately when Sylar buzzed in, despite the early hour.

"Spock! You're not dressed!"

Sylar looked down at himself and his blue science uniform, puzzled, then looked back at Kirk's shiny outfit that buttoned all the way up the neck. "Dress uniforms, Spock! Go get yours in a hurry. I hate them too, can hardly breathe in 'em, but at least you and Bones have to suffer with me." Kirk was scrambling to get ready, trying to pull on a black boot with one hand and hold a PADD with the other. "We've got that ceremony with the delegates from Altair VI at 0900. They beamed aboard last night, remember? Delegate Sa-ray-na? Sa-ry-nah? How do you pronounce this?"

Sylar caught the PADD Kirk chucked at him. He glanced at it and shrugged.

"A lot of help you are, this morning," Kirk grumbled, successfully getting one boot over the tucked-in pants and reaching for the other.

The door buzzed. "Enter!"

"Jim! I hate these shirts" was McCoy's first complaint in what was probably going to be a series of them. He tugged at the constricting color on his emblazoned blue top and looked at Sylar. "Aw, come on, where's yours? Jim, why doesn't Spock have to wear his?"

"Give it a rest, Bones," Kirk replied with exasperation, giving himself a final once-over before making his way to the door.

Sylar just stood there, absent-mindedly holding the PADD, watching the two men bluster about the room.

"Okay, let's get this show on the road," Kirk said and led the way out of his quarters, McCoy and Sylar trailing behind him. Sylar didn't want to go through another day of this charade, but so far there wasn't an opening in the conversation. Kirk greeted everyone the trio passed, and the crew were greeting him back.

When they arrived at the conference room in which they were meeting the visiting delegates, Sylar slowly backed out until he was left alone in the corridor and the automatic door hissed shut. He didn't feel like playing First Officer today. Reluctantly, he decided to go meditate (_not sulk, _his mind insisted) in his quarters until the Captain was available to talk.

-----------------------------------------------

"Bridge to Commander Spock." In the silence of his quarters, Uhura's voice sounded far too loud. Three point six hours had passed. Sylar had a headache, but he flipped on his communicator resignedly.

"Spock here."

"Get up here, Spock," came the Captain's voice. He sounded angry. Well, given that Sylar had played unauthorized hooky from what was probably an important ceremony, meeting, whatever, it wasn't that surprising.

"On my way," Sylar said, then tagged on, "Captain."

When he exited the lift onto the bridge, he saw that everyone was at their usual posts except for the Captain, who was bent over the science station monitors. "Commander," Kirk called, "we're picking up strange readings. I need you to at least do your science duties if not your command duties today." Kirk stood up, his posture challenging, and gestured at the monitors.

Sylar hesitated. "Captain, I wish to speak with you on a matter of great importance. Perhaps now--"

"Not now, Spock. I need those readings analyzed." The Captain had already moved on from Spock's station to Uhura's. "Anything to hail? Anything hailing us?"

"No, Captain, I'm not picking up any signals," she replied.

Sylar tried to focus past his aching head and on the monitors instead. He had no idea what he was looking at. These fluctuations were not like the normal readings he'd gotten accustomed to over the previous several days, and he had no Academy training to rely on. No precedent.

"Commander, what have you got?" Kirk demanded.

"I," Sylar started, "I don't know." He was frustrated at his helplessness and clenched his fists. His mind was not on the task at all.

Kirk advanced on him, "Conjecture then."

Without meeting the Captain's glare, Sylar bit out, "I. Don't. Know." He knew something was wrong with him. It hadn't been a good idea to come to the bridge. "May I be excused, Captain?"

"Commander, you've got to be kidding me," Kirk complained incredulously, but then waved his hands towards the lift, "Fine. Lieutenant Uhura, page the beta shift science officer and get her here immediately."

"Aye, Captain," came Uhura's swift response, which Sylar barely noticed as he barreled across the bridge to the lift. Once safely ensconced in the lift, he looked up for only a moment back to the bridge and his wary eyes met Kirk's angry ones. Sylar frowned and pulled the lift's handle, effectively closing the door and leaving him alone at last. What was wrong with him?

Sylar hadn't gotten fifty meters from the bridge when his communicator buzzed.

"Spock, laddie, er, Commander," Scotty's brogue patched through, "we're havin' two sligh' problems, no, er, make tha' _major_ problems in Engineering and I canna' fix 'em both at the same time. I'll work on her nacelles if ye can help cool the main power converter."

Sylar wasn't sure how much help he was going to be, but he agreed. "I'll come at once. Spock out."

He diverted course to head to Engineering, and on the way his communicator buzzed yet again. "Spock! This is the Captain. You hear from Scotty? He needs your help in Engineering. It's getting worse by the second! The main power's burning up and not in a good way!"

"Yes, I'm on it," Sylar said aloud but winced internally. _Yeah, I'll just fix the power thingy on this spaceship. Sure, I can do that._ To keep his fraying mind in order, he counted 76 paces until he reached Engineering and as he walked up to the red door of the engine room two coughing crewmen were dashing out. Sylar stared at the departing crewmen and the dark gray smoke billowing through the doorframe and might have heard a voice caution, 'Don't go in there, Sir!' but went into the room anyway. _Even if I don't know how to fix it, at least I can't die in the attempt_, he figured.

Maybe he couldn't die, but he could get really uncomfortable.

Upon entering, the smoke was so thick it immediately clogged his chest, making it hard to breathe and impossible to see. Sylar dropped to his knees and crawled, remembering that there were controls on the left side of the room. He realized some fuse must have blown – or was about to blow. Coughing and choking, Sylar dragged himself along the ground until he felt the control panel. He raised himself to a crouch and blindly used his hands to feel around the control panel for some sort of switch. He found it and pulled hard – shit, too hard! He'd torn the handle right off, his current body's Vulcan strength coming into play at the worst moment. Sylar would have sighed if there had been enough air left in the room, but as it was, he just stayed still in a low crouch for a moment, reviewing his limited options even as his lungs painfully filled with smoke. Sylar blinked away tears before realizing they were beads of sweat that had formed from the increasing heat. His whole body felt like a furnace and he when he ran a hand across his forehead and into his hair to wipe away some of the sweat, he felt that his hair was crispy from getting completely singed. He knew he had to get out of there, whether pulling that switch had succeeded or not. Gasping for breath, he fumbled around, hopefully heading back the way he came. But it hurt. Oh, how it hurt. He was inching across the floor on his stomach, but he just couldn't get a breath. Something was on fire. Belatedly, he realized that something was him. He reached out one last time, stretching and gasping, his eyes searching for some sign that he was close to the exit. His smoky vision faded to black and mercifully he lost consciousness.

-----------------------------------------------

Sylar awoke to bright white light and the sound of an even-tempo beeping.

On instinct, he gasped in a deep breath just to reassure his body that he could do so, and sat up abruptly in one of sickbay's bio-beds. Sitting on a chair directly in front of his hospital bed was Doctor McCoy, looking stern. Sylar didn't flinch when McCoy approached him and held his wrist, turning it over and back. "Not a scratch," the doctor murmured. Then, he stood back and pointed a finger at Sylar, "We have to talk. Stay here." McCoy then spun on his heel and left the room.

_Not likely_, Sylar thought, hopping off the bed. He saw the tattered remains of his uniform on a nearby table and grimaced at the fact that they looked like someone had stuck them in an oven. Smoked to a crisp, just like his body had been – though no longer. Sylar smirked, suddenly taking pleasure in comparing the burnt pieces of fabric with his own unblemished skin. This ability he had taken from Claire was truly the most special. Not that he'd be intentionally launching himself into any new heroic acts anytime soon, but he figured that he must have done something right if the ship wasn't destroyed into a billion pieces floating through space. Sylar allowed himself a moment of unabashed pride. Not a monster, then, but a hero. He supposed he could work with that. In fact, he could definitely work with that.

Pulling his sickbay robe around himself tighter (even the future's hospital gowns did little for a person's dignity) he strode towards the door only to be blocked by McCoy and the Captain. "Where do you think you're going?" McCoy questioned, walking into the room. "You just got cooked like a Thanksgiving turkey, saved the ship, and you think you can walk out of here without your CMO giving you the a-okay?"

"I'm quite healthy, Doctor. Please 'okay' me to leave," Sylar returned with a slight edge to his voice to disguise his nervousness.

"Not so fast," McCoy said, poking him with a waggling finger as he tried to maneuver the stubborn patient back to the biobed. Sylar compromised by sitting down in a chair. "Now. Not that I was hoping to you'd still be covered in that green stuff you call blood, but how in a pig's eye did you heal so darn fast? You were completely burnt! A smoking carcass! You saw him, Jim."

At this, Kirk pulled up a chair and straddled it backwards. "Yeah Bones, I saw him. Hell, I helped carry his...body...outa there." Sylar noted that Kirk looked extremely agitated, forlorn even, while Bones was getting madder by the moment.

"Well?" McCoy prompted, his face open and upset.

Looking at the two men, Sylar realized they weren't truly angry so much as shaken. Kirk was never at a loss for words, yet here he was being reserved. And McCoy's vehemence stemmed from worry about his friend. Sylar spoke up, "I did not mean to concern you. I knew I would not die, so the risk was minimal. And, as you can see," he gestured to himself, "I have recovered satisfactorily."

"It's medically impossible, the way you healed," McCoy protested.

"Your body was reknitting itself before my eyes," Kirk added, some awe creeping into his voice.

"You've been hurt before, and while you have that healing trance thing it's not like this. Not at all," McCoy commented.

"I....can heal. Myself. I can heal myself with a special ability. It's new...for me, too." Sylar hoped that was believable.

"This whole day, Spock," Kirk began. "It's like you're not yourself. First, you disappear instead of attending the diplomatic meeting with the Altair VI representatives. Not like you. Then you skip out on bridge duty. Definitely not like you. But then you go into a burning room and shut down the main reactor, which, well, was really amazing actually. I don't want you to think that we're grilling you here without giving you recognition for that. That was...amazing. But, this rapid healing – it was unnatural. Even for you. I think you have something to tell us. You said you wanted to talk earlier today and things were too hectic. But now is the time. What is it?"

Sylar made his decision. "It's easier to show you." With that, Sylar concentrated and shape-shifted back into his regular form, so similar and yet so different from the half-Vulcan officer.

Kirk and McCoy looked stunned, so stunned that Kirk whipped out his phaser and aimed it at Sylar. "You're not Spock!" he shouted accusingly.

"No," Sylar concurred. "I am Sylar."

"Who are you, Sylar?" McCoy asked, backing up slightly before curiosity drove him closer again, inspecting Sylar's face. "Uncanny," he whispered, seeing the similarity to Spock.

"I'm Spock in another dimension, or so I'm told. A version of him, if you will." Sylar made no sudden movements, wanting to allow Kirk and McCoy to see that he wasn't dangerous. _Hah, not dangerous_, he chuckled to himself. _I'm extremely dangerous._

"What's your purpose here? How long have you been here, pretending to be Spock? And where's _our _Spock?" Kirk challenged, his eyes hard as diamonds and his tone cold.

Expecting the outburst, Sylar was able to respond calmly. "I'm not here to harm anyone. I was put here. A powerful being switched us, Spock and me. As for why, I suppose the answer might be to learn. From Spock and his life. Or something like that." Meeting the other men's gazes, Sylar answered further, "As for how long I've been here, since the chess game over a week ago."

"Over a week?!" Kirk exclaimed, pushing the chair out from under him in his rush to stand up. "So it was you, not Spock, on the mission to the mining colony? You, not Spock, with the crazy flowers? You, not Spock, handling the Tribble mess, and you, today, saving my ship?" Kirk was pacing, hands gesturing wildly in his rampage around sickbay. Then, he whirled around, his phaser re-trained on Sylar. "Thanks for that, but where's Spock now?"

Unhurriedly, Sylar unfolded his long limbs to stand up to meet Kirk head on. Sylar smiled but it was more threatening than friendly, as he found himself rather enjoying being nonchalant in the face of the other's emotional explosion. "I'm not sure, really. Earth, early 21st century, I imagine."

Kirk scowled and McCoy piped in, "We want out pointy-eared bast---friend back!"

"Yes, that is the goal," Sylar surprised them by agreeing. "I'm done playing First Officer anyway. That's what I wanted to tell you earlier. I need to go back to my own life. But," Sylar paused, thinking, "I don't know how to find Spock."

"Can't you call that alien that switched you?" McCoy asked, still heated as if facing an enemy in battle.

Sylar shrugged. "I tried that. Didn't take."

Kirk had finally lowered his phaser and grudgingly said, "We'll have to work together." Then, more determinedly, "We've got to find Spock."

McCoy pressed Sylar again, "Maybe now is a better time. Just try again. Call it or something."

"The 'it' is a 'her', and I suppose it couldn't hurt," Sylar said in reply. He concentrated, trying to divide his focus half inward and half outward, calling for the strange being mentally and aloud, "_It's Sylar! Come speak to me! I'm Sylar, not Spock. Show yourself!" _Sylar opened his eyes and looked around sickbay. "See? Noth—"

"Yes? Can I help you?" the voice appeared first, followed by the physical form of the strange woman Sylar remembered from his Company cell.

"We want Spock back, now!" Kirk ordered at the same time as Sylar asked, "Where is Spock?"

"Ah, right. I suppose it's been long enough. I really don't keep track of _mortal_ time very well," the woman said, rambling in a condescending way that annoyed Sylar. "Spock _was _being you, Sylar. But he's not there anymore. He didn't seem to care for it much. He found it too...weird...or something, I don't know," she trailed off. "Anyway, I brought him back to this time period and dropped him off with some other pointy-eared people."

"You mean on the new Vulcan colony?" McCoy inquired hopefully. He turned to Kirk, "That's not too far away, Jim."

The woman glanced at McCoy and Kirk and then Sylar, "No. Some place called Romulus."

"Romulus!" Kirk and Bones yelled at the same time, looking aghast. Kirk quickly explained, "Vulcans and Romulans are ancient, bitter rivals!"

"Not to mention they hate Starfleeters," Bones chimed in.

"If Spock got dumped on Romulus he's in danger!" Kirk exhaled and squinted his eyes closed before opening them again, filled with emotion. "The Romulans probably even have a personal grudge against Spock since he was involved in the Nero crisis. Even though Nero wasn't from this time it was still known he was Romulan. And Spock's role was highly publicized."

"Shit, this is bad," McCoy summed up.

"Oh dear," the woman offered. "Oops!" And with that explanation of her leaving Spock on Romulus, she disappeared with a snap.

"We will set course for Romulan space and rescue Spock," Kirk said resolutely, pocketing his phaser and straightening his shoulders.

"It'll be a dangerous mission, Jim," McCoy warned. "And Starfleet Command won't be pleased."

"Too bad. We're going to search for Spock and that's final," Kirk told him, but also was telling Sylar with a meaningful glance.

Sylar didn't dispute the order, and McCoy whooped, "Aye, aye, Captain!"

"I'm going to bridge," Kirk announced, already leaving sickbay.

"I'll be there momentarily," Sylar paused, "as Spock?"

Kirk frowned but then said, "As yourself, Sylar. No more posing as my First. But you can still help."

"That'll complicate the paperwork," McCoy pointed out.

"So be it," Kirk rejoined and ducked out of sickbay, a man on a mission.

"Doctor, if you have a moment," Sylar said quietly, sitting down and tugging on the white sickbay robe he was wrapped in.

"What? You seem healthy to me," McCoy replied, "with those quick healing abilities you've been hiding away."

_That's not the only ability I've been hiding_, Sylar thought to himself. If he was going to be contributing usefully to this mission to find Spock, he had to get some control over himself. No more outbursts or near-misses. As much as he loathed asking McCoy for help – after all, McCoy himself complained that he was a doctor, not a psychiatrist – he calculated it was worth inquiring about. "I'm actually having some problems with my abilities. With being able to control them,"

"Go on," McCoy encouraged, sitting down again too, holding a PADD.

"I was adapting Spock's logical controls over the mind, but ever since the trippy flowers on Omicron Ceti III it hasn't been working so well," Sylar admitted, cautiously gauging McCoy's response.

"All right, let me check things out," McCoy said, running one of his medical diagnostic tools over Sylar, who sat patiently. "Ah," McCoy muttered, "Ah hah."

"What?" Sylar demanded.

"That control-smashing pollen hasn't been fully eliminated from your system. That's the source of your troubles right there," McCoy informed him. He reached for a hypo and jabbed it at Sylar's neck before he could protest. Then he took more readings. "Hm, no change." He pursed his lips in thought. "There's only one way of getting that stuff out of your blood if it's not going away on its own. But it's risky."

"What is it?" Sylar asked anxiously. _Great_, he thought, _another rare virus interfering with my abilities. That's not the kind of 'special' I had in mind._

"It's a blood cleaning procedure. We run your blood through a machine that cleans it, and then we cycle it back into your body. It hurts like hell and, like I said, it can be risky."

Skeptical, Sylar ran a hand through his hair and asked, "You think it will eventually expel itself without the procedure?"

This time McCoy was the one who frowned. "No, I don't. Now, I don't know your physiology—"

"Human," Sylar interjected. "Just...evolved." _Special_.

"Well, then if it's not gone by now like it is for every other human on this ship, then it's not going to go away on its own. If it's causing you problems, I advise in favor of the procedure." Seeing Sylar looked unsure, he went on, "Think about it. Give it a day or so as we head to Romulan space."

"Alright, I'll think about it," Sylar said. Was it worth the risk? He pitted the coveted control he'd worked so hard to build against the hated hunger that plagued him. Maybe he could just live with the hunger. But Sylar had never been one to settle for mediocrity. That was Gabriel's domain. Sylar wasn't pleased about how things had gone down exactly, but it could have been worse. And as little as he cared to be a guinea pig in yet another medical experiment, the reward outweighed the costs. He'd go through with it. But not right now. Later. Eventually.


	9. Go with the flow

_Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes or StarTrek and earn nothing by this, except your welcomed reviews. Unbeta'd. Enjoy!_

CHAPTER 9: GO WITH THE FLOW

Sylar was sitting at Spock's desk in his quarters when the doors whooshed open.

"You're still here," came the not-quite question from the Captain. "Didn't you get my message?" He looked a little tense, subtlety shifting his weight back and forth from one foot to the other, the shiny black boots squeaking at a decibel only Sylar could hear.

Sylar crinkled his brow, "No." Returning from sickbay, he'd decided to forgo the blue science uniform in favor of more nondescript black pants and a black T-shirt. There didn't seem to be much differences in T-shirt production in the last few centuries, but he hadn't managed to figure out how to requisition an accompanying black jacket like the kind he preferred. Not that it mattered, since this room like the rest of the ship was climate controlled – now set at human-norm instead of Vulcan-norm.

Sylar actually _had_ seen that he'd received a few messages on the terminal, but he didn't bother with them. He'd already agreed to help search for Spock, so what else could they be bothering him about? It's not like the Captain was going to invite _Sylar _to play chess. No one on this ship had any real connection with _him_, Sylar, just his façade as their officer and friend. And Sylar was pretty sure that's how he wanted to keep it.

Apparently, Kirk didn't like being ignored – not his messages or his presence. Sylar continued to fiddle with the tricorder in his hands, impressed with the technology and hoping to glean something useful from it to take back to Earth. It wasn't that different from working with a watch. And his innate ability to understand such things applied here equally well as to the machinery he was accustomed to. Maybe he could even make off with the tricorder itself. Yet another reason he liked wearing a long jacket with big pockets, aside from the allure of its sleek, intimidating appearance.

"The message was that Yeoman Rand is coming by to help you move to guest quarters. In about," Kirk looked at a timepiece, "ten minutes."

"I don't think so," Sylar said, still not looking up. "I'm quite comfortable here for the duration of this little adventure."

Kirk's jaw dropped minutely before he pulled himself together, saying sternly, "Look, this is Commander _Spock's_ quarters, not yours. So get _un_comfortable here."

Sylar didn't respond. It wasn't that he was so interested in the tricorder at this point, just feeling smug now that the Captain of the ship was frustrated with his lack of compliance. Which, of course, was all the sweeter since it was that very reaction Kirk had provoked out of Spock in the altercation during the Narada crisis. Even a human without a eidetic memory would have remembered that confrontation perfectly.

"This is not a request. I'm the Captain of this vessel, and I am ordering you to remove yourself from these quarters." Kirk was quite serious, his voice strong but carefully kept to a low volume.

Sylar smoothly rose to his feet in slow motion and finally met Kirk's steely look. "I think you'll find, Captain, that you would do well to leave me alone. And not threaten me." Sylar's voice was calm but the tension in the air was thick. A standoff, then.

Kirk was the first to crack. "I'm not threatening you," he contested, trying to placate the mysterious Spock-impersonator. "It's just that Spock highly values his privacy, and it's weird having you here now that you're…yourself. Why do you want to be in Spock's quarters anyway? Don't you have a life of your own? You're not pretending to be him anymore, so why live under his shadow?"

It was the wrong thing to say.

Swiftly, Sylar used his telekinesis to slam Kirk into the wall, the impact making the Captain cough and splutter before he regained himself, yelling "Sylar, stop! Fighting won't solve anything. I thought you wanted what I wanted. Spock back here. And you back where you came from. You said you want that. Don't you?"

Breathing hard with adrenaline, Sylar tried to uncoil the muscles in his limbs that had become taut in response to the adversarial situation. His body's responses like that had often surprised Sylar, since his technique in any battle was to rely on his abilities, not get into an actual physical fight. As Gabriel, he'd never punched anyone, not even to fight back against people who bullied him for his quiet, bookish demeanor. But once he found his power, he got a thrill out of exercising both his mind and his body. He was fairly certain that, Vulcan strength or not, he could take this punk kid of a Captain in a scuffle.

But right now, using his ability to hold him against the wall, the Captain was more helpless victim than aggressive opponent. But that hadn't stopped the man's attempt to squirm out of the invisible lockdown. Smiling, Sylar collected himself and strolled casually back to the desk. He gave a dramatic sigh and plopped down on the chair, cocking his head and giving the Captain an amused 'who me?' look. "It seems we are at an impasse, Captain." He wished Spock's chair was the kind that spun, it would have added to the effect of his nonchalance. He twirled a PADD pen instead. "But not for long. See, let me help you understand how things are going to be. I'm going to do what I want. And you're going to let me."

"And in return?" Kirk questioned him, still kicking in hopes of freeing himself from his defenseless position.

Sylar gave him a lopsided grin. "And in return, you get to live." Sylar folded his hands together on the table and rested his chin on the joined knuckles. "And of course you can continue on this quest of yours to rescue Spock. I won't hinder you. I'll even help you. But to be clear," Sylar's deceptively playful voice continued, "you can't order me around. You may only...suggest." On the last word, Sylar released Kirk who stumbled briefly but did not fall in a heap on the floor. Sylar was disappointed at that.

"You bastard," Kirk spat. Then, he seemed to rethink his strategy and started again. "You've been here all week, pretending to be my First Officer, pretending to be _my friend_, and you'd kill me, just like that?"

"Yes," Sylar said honestly.

"I don't believe you," Kirk countered, his voice picking up speed and becoming more certain. "Maybe you aren't Spock, but the man I relied on for the last few mission, the man whose company I enjoyed, who accepted Bones' and my teasing, who doted on Tribbles, and saved lives – he's a good person. I _liked_ that person. You're still that person, if you want to be. You don't have to change your appearance to do it, either. If you're really some version of Spock, then I know that, while we all have good and bad, the good can outweigh the bad in you."

Sylar's hollow eyes started to fill with warmth before darkening again. "Pretty speech, Captain. But you don't know anything about me."

"I know you went into a burning room to help us. I know you protected an alien mother who was just looking after her eggs. I know you're good at solving mysteries, like that poisoned grain."

"Quadrotriticale," Sylar corrected, but Kirk wasn't finished.

"I know you've got a scientist's curiosity. I know you hate Bones' hypos as much as I do. I know you suck at three-dimensional chess." The last was said jokingly and Sylar snorted.

"I know you can choose to be whoever you want to be. And I don't mean choosing to be Spock. I mean choosing to be yourself, the best version of _Sylar_."

Sylar opened his mouth to reply but closed it again, stumped. How did he go from wanting to slice open Kirk's brain to grudgingly appreciating Kirk's humorous wit in one minute to the next? He'd been in a murderous rage and now he was practically preening. It was vaguely horrifying.

Kirk took his silence as leave to keep the new, relaxed vibe going. "So, we're en route to dangerous territory, where we're not actually allowed by Starfleet Command to go, where we'll undoubtedly run into people trying to kill us and, in the meantime, have no idea where Spock can be found on Romulus if he is still even on the wretched planet. Want to play chess?"

Sylar rolled his eyes. "I thought I 'sucked' at chess."

"Exactly. You need the practice. Come on, let's set it up. You've only played the game twice, genius."

Still bemused, Sylar allowed Kirk to get out the board and set up the pieces. The lunatic Captain hadn't called for security or even acknowledged that his life had been threatened. He was either very brave, or very stupid. Or both. Sylar thought of the first mission during which Spock had nearly strangled Kirk to death before Kirk seized control of the Enterprise. "So, do you like making a habit of provoking versions of me into almost killing you before stealing control of the situation?"

"I like to use near-death experiences as an ice breaker," Kirk offered, his usual grin back in place.

Sylar let himself laugh.

At that moment, the door buzzed. _Yeoman Rand_, Sylar thought.

Kirk went to the door and stepped out into the hallway for a moment, but Sylar's abilities enabled him to hear perfectly anyway. "Nevermind, Yeoman," Kirk was shooing his Sylar's would-be moving-assistant away.

_Compromise_, Sylar considered. _I can live with that. _He also hoped he wasn't getting played.

Again.

It wouldn't be the first time he'd taken someone's words at face-value in exchange for a sense of belonging. As Gabriel, he'd been somewhat of a loner. As Sylar, he'd pushed that to the extreme – but with a twist. Namely, he'd come to view everyone around him not as potential irritants or bullies but as inferiors and prey. Except his mother. He and Spock had the same weak point where their mothers were concerned. He learned from the picture of Spock's mother that her death was still a sensitive topic. The death of Sylar's mother was equally sensitive, but for obviously different reasons. If she even was his real mother, given Angela's claims, which, if he was honest with himself Sylar knew he believed only because he wanted to believe. Sylar's ability to intuitively understand situations hadn't been lost when he was hit with the virus. Bennet had warned him that Angela was using him. What Bennet didn't perceive was that Sylar wanted to believe. Wanted to believe that his father wasn't a mere watchmaker. Wanted to believe that his mother wasn't a crazy woman who collected snow globes. Wanted to believe he was part of a special family. Wanted to believe he was needed and had a purpose. He hadn't asked Angela for DNA proof not because he truly believed he was a Petrelli. But because he knew – he feared – he wasn't.

And now, just as Sylar had traded the Gray family for the Petrellis, he'd traded the Petrellis for the crew of the Enterprise. Displacement following displacement. He could see the psychological pattern in the workings of his mind as clearly as he could see the inner workings of a watch. He acknowledged it. And he ignored it.

------------------------------------------------

By the next day Sylar was figuratively skipping through a field of daisies with the crew of the Enterprise in their joint-voluntary mission to save Spock, and he had cause to re-examine his options for the blood cleaning procedure. It could eliminate the pollen remains, thereby keeping the hunger at bay by having his control restored. He felt he'd done admirably well in not killing Kirk, and he wanted his streak to continue with everyone on board. He'd saved their lives like they were worth something, so he might as well try McCoy's experiment to avoid a bloody mess. They had no abilities to steal; it would purposeless waste.

He entered the lift to head to Sickbay. "Hello," he pleasantly greeted the present occupant, a pretty blonde sporting one of those ridiculous short skirted uniforms.

She blinked at him, clearly not recognizing him.

He winked at her, and she blushed before exiting the lift at her desired floor. Only to be replaced with Lt. Uhura, who walked in and checked the lift's destination before turning to stare at Sylar.

The stare morphed into a glare.

She looked at him curiously, like she was trying to decipher a puzzling grammatical feat of alien syntax. Uhura, never one to beat around the bush, spoke up, "You look familiar. Do I know you?"

Even though Sylar wasn't hiding his identity anymore, he hadn't discussed with the Captain and McCoy whether he would tell other crew members that he had been their Spock for a few days. He was still debating whether to tell Uhura – call me Nyota, she'd implored – that her latest visit with her Vulcan friend had in fact been with him when the lift arrived at the floor for Sickbay. As he exited the lift, he waggled his brows and said, "Would you like to?"

Uhura rolled her eyes at his flirting and grabbed his arm roughly, following him out of the lift. "I'd appreciate some professional decorum. Or just back off. Your choice," she warned, then added, "Just be serious."

"Is that your most serious skirt?" he countered, but the corners up his lips were turned up and his tone was friendly.

She let go of his arm and sighed as they walked in sync, apparently going to the same place. "It's regulation. But, I agree with the sentiment. It's not at all practical," she said. "In fact, I've requested numerous times to Starfleet Command for the female crew to be outfitted in the same uniforms as the men. But only the engineering women here on the Enterprise have made any headway, and they only got their skirts lengthened. And that was thanks to Commander Spock, since he heard me complain about it many times and was in this case able to do something about it."

"Commander Spock doesn't like the women's short uniforms?" he teased.

Uhura's beautiful face scrunched. "That's completely besides the point. The Commander is logical and saw the logic in the argument. Some of us like that about him." She whipped her long ponytail around dangerously as they clipped the corner to reach Sickbay. Sylar grinned to himself knowing just how much Uhura liked that, and everything else, about Spock.

Sylar didn't have to think of a reply because they'd entered Sickbay. He didn't see McCoy. "McCoy?" Sylar called. "Doctor?"

"Back here," came a muffled voice from an adjoining room.

Sylar followed the voice until he found himself in McCoy's office. McCoy was sitting at his desk holding a glass half-filled with a blue liquid. "Sylar, what can I do for you? Actually I can guess, since there's not much you can't heal yourself."

Sylar rocked back and forth on his heels. "Then you've guessed correctly, Doctor. I want to do the procedure." He glanced at the glass in McCoy's hand, "That is, if you're not indisposed."

McCoy barked a short laugh. "Hah! This little thing?" he waved the glass and the blue liquid sloshed back and forth. "It's just a little pick-me-up. I'm on duty, after all."

"Of course," Sylar dead-panned.

"Alright. Well, I'll have Nurse Chapel assist. She'll be thrilled."

"Oh?"

"She has a thing for Spock. And you're as close as she'll get."

"You're being very informative today, Doctor," Sylar commented.

McCoy had the grace to look chagrined. "Gossipy, you mean. Don't mind me. Let's get that shit out of your bloodstream."

Within a few minutes, Sylar was reclining shirtless in a biobed next to a large blood pumping machine, and Chapel was trying to stick a very large needle in his arm veins. "Sorry," she apologized. Sylar just leaned back and tried not to wince. After he took Claire's ability, she'd told him she could no longer feel pain. That numbness would have been useful right now, but it had not developed for him. "There," Chapel said triumphantly, and Sylar hissed as the large needle dug in deep.

McCoy calibrated the blood cleaning machine and started the procedure, and Sylar watched in morbid fascination as his blood cycled out of his body only to be recycled back into his body. He was extremely comfortable with other people's blood, of course, but less so with his own. And the procedure was draining him. He actually started to feel woozy. He said so aloud. "Yes, well, it's a lot of blood moving in and out. Just be patient," McCoy replied. "You can pass out, if you want."

_Want_ had nothing to do with it as Sylar's brown eyes closed of their own accord. He drifted off.

When he came to, his time-sense told him 4.65 hours had passed. He felt that the procedure must be nearly over, but his body was tender. What had awoken him early? Then he heard it. A voice in his head.

'_Sylar.'_

Sylar twisted his head around as if it would help him better hear the voice in his head.

'_Help. Get help_.'

_What?_ Sylar asked in his head. _It must be the loss of blood causing me to hear voices in my head. Great_.

'_Sylar. Must listen_.'

"McCoy," Sylar managed to say aloud. "Is it normal to hear voices in my head? During this?" He still felt woozy but the urgency of the voice in his head kept him alert.

"It's Nurse Chapel, and no," was the reply. Sylar watched as she grabbed a silver tool that looked like a salt-shaker and waved it over Sylar's head. Sylar shuddered when he felt it trace the vulnerable place behind the back of his skull. "What kind of voices are you hearing?"

"I don't know," Sylar murmured, struggling to stay attentive.

'_Not Romulus. Moon_.'

"We've reached Romulan space," Chapel informed him. "The procedure is complete. We were just letting you recuperate."

"Not Romulus, its moon," Sylar said.

"Hm?" Chapel queried, distracted by watching Sylar's arm heal over perfectly from where the needle had been removed.

Sylar was feeling better already, physically and mentally. He closed his hand over hers. "Can I get some ice cream?" he asked Chapel, solicitously, looking up at her with dark lashes fawning over big brown eyes.

"Uh, sure, I can do that," Chapel giggled and stepped out of the room.

'_Affinity of our minds. Enables this. Romulus's moon.'_

Nurse Chapel came back holding a tray and presented it to Sylar.

"Dippin dots!" he recognized and laughed. "Ice cream of the future indeed."

Sylar ate a large spoonful of the ice cream and this time his mouth didn't rebel. It was delicious.

Chapel addressed him, "The Captain asked me to inform you when you awoke that two away teams are being assigned to take shuttles down to Romulus's surface."

"Why shuttles?" Sylar asked curiously.

Nurse Chapel looked at him intently. "It's risky, but it would be worse to put the Enterprise in orbit. The members of the away team are very brave. If they don't come back, the Captain gave orders for the Enterprise to abandon them and head for Federation space."

Sylar focused on the information Chapel was giving, turning it over in his mind. "When do the teams embark?"

"Any moment now," Chapel responded. "The Captain's communication had come from the shuttle bay."

His head was clear and his thinking gloriously unhindered by his hunger for abilities. _His head was _clear. _Wait, there had been a voice. Something about the Romulan moon. _Finally making the connection between the voice in his head and the Vulcan, he realized it was Spock. Aloud he rushed his speech, "It's Spock! In my head. He must be able to communicate telepathically across this distance." And _he's not on Romulus; he's on its moon. _Sylar pushed the tray aside and leapt out of the biobed.

"Where are you going?" Nurse Chapel exclaimed, watching her patient who moments ago was lethargic and weak stride across Sickbay completely energized.

Not responding, Sylar dashed out of Sickbay shirtless and shoeless and raced to the shuttle bay.

---------------------------------------------

"If you're coming along, you're really underdressed," was Kirk's greeting when Sylar jogged into the shuttle bay. There were seven crew members assembled, including McCoy and Uhura.

"He's not on Romulus," Sylar stated plainly. There was no doubt who the 'he' referred to.

"Explain," the Captain ordered.

"He told me. In my head. He said he's on one of the moons."

Uhura looked shocked while Kirk merely nodded. Sylar turned his thoughts inward to glean helpful information more from Spock through the faint but present telepathic connection. Now that he was paying attention to it, he could access it better.

'_Political prisoner. Mostly unharmed.'_

_You've had a rough time of it, Spock, moving from one cell to another, _Sylar thought jokingly to his counterpart. Spock didn't deign to comment. Aloud, Sylar said, "Spock conveyed he's a political prisoner of some sort and is mostly unharmed."

McCoy made a fretting sound. "And what does 'mostly unharmed' mean to a Vulcan? Probably a ruptured spleen, five broken ribs, and an infection."

"We need a new plan," Kirk announced. He turned to Sulu. "Can we approach close enough to the Romulan moon to beam down?"

"Negative, Captain," Sulu replied. "She's already closer than she should be."

"Then we'll take two shuttles to the moon's surface. We'll split four and three."

Sylar remained quiet as the others discussed the rescue plan. Sylar knew the mission was voluntary. The Captain didn't order any one to go after their lost crewman. They did this out of loyalty to the Commander. They broke the huddle and Kirk, McCoy, and Uhura made their way to one shuttle, while the other four walked across the shuttle bay towards another. Sylar followed determinedly.

He was the last in line to get in the shuttle, and before he could do so Kirk came back out and blocked his path. "You don't have to come, you know. It's dangerous, even if you can't bleed or burn to death. You can still get blasted into a million pieces floating in space if we're shot down. And the Romulans hate us right now, and I mean us – the Enterprise crew – especially. If we're caught, we'll most likely be tortured and executed."

Sylar listened but hadn't responded, and Kirk went into the shuttle to fuss with the equipment. Sylar followed and watched as he clipped a second phaser to his belt and then tossed a spare uniform shirt to Sylar. "So, you're coming anyway?"

Sylar tossed Kirk's own words back at him, "You betcha."


	10. You!

_Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes or StarTrek and earn nothing by this, except your welcomed reviews. Unbeta'd. Thanks for reading and reviewing. I enjoy comments, critiques, anything you have to say.  
_

**CHAPTER 10: You!**

Sitting strapped into the shuttle on its decent to the Romulan moon, Sylar realized that space travel wasn't always as smooth as the gentle lull of a starship. The small shuttle rocked and rolled, and he was glad to be belted in his seat. The noise was loud, too. Only McCoy looked more uneasy than he did.

The shuttle gave a lurch and the back of Sylar's head banged against the side wall painfully. He grimaced, especially in reaction to _where_ he'd been bumped, but said nothing. Unlike McCoy. "Dammit Uhura, are you trying to kill us _before_ we get shot down?"

Uhura was focused on piloting the shuttle and didn't acknowledge McCoy's complaint. Kirk was sitting in the copilot's seat, and turned to shout behind him, "Sorry Bones! We hit a storm when we entered the atmosphere! We need it for cover so their sensors don't pick us up!"

"Hang on!" Uhura yelled in warning. Taking her advice, Sylar and McCoy grabbed on to the straps hanging above their heads and braced themselves for impact.

With a screeching thud, the shuttle landed and the engines shuddered to a full stop. Even with the engines cut, it was still loud because they had landed in a wind storm, and the currents were slamming up against the shuttle in huge gusts.

Kirk opened the shuttle door and peaked out, his hair whipping about into a tangled mess. "It's manageable. Come on!" Sylar, Uhura, and McCoy followed him out onto the surface. The wind was strong but not enough to blow them over.

"There's the other shuttle, Sir!" Uhura called out, her high-pitched voice raised in volume to be heard over the streaming air.

"Signal them to meet up with us in that shelter there," Kirk ordered, leading the group to a rocky overhang.

They huddled under the alcove and McCoy used his tricorder to take readings. "Landing in this insufferable wind was worth it. Look, the compound's only 150 meters from here."

"And probably teeming with Romulans," Sulu pointed out as he joined the conversation.

"But not necessarily guards," Uhura said thoughtfully, and the others looked at her to elaborate. "The prison is on Romulus. The lunar compound houses a science station. So the lifeform readings are probably nearly all of scientists, not trained warriors."

"Good, good. This will work to our advantage. You," Kirk motioned to one of the security officers, "stay here and guard the shuttles. Everyone else, we make for the compound. Break into pairs for the search. Sulu, you're with Uhura. Giotto and Ensign Ro. Bones, keep that med pack on you and come with me. Phasers out and ready. We want to get in and out fast with the least amount of disturbance possible."

A chorus of aye's followed the Captain's orders and they all pushed through the wind towards the beacon of the lighted compound. When they got there and found a little-used service door in the cold, gray building that the Captain kicked open. Once inside, Kirk ordered the pairs to commence splitting up. Sylar hadn't been assigned (he was _not_ offended by this) so he decided he'd start out following Kirk and McCoy and would go off alone if he saw an opportunity to save Spock himself. Furthermore, he didn't really want to be alone in a building full of strangers he already had a reason to despise. No need to actively bring about a situation that would make them even _more _tempting to his…tastes.

Sylar slipped into a shape that he thought would be more useful, like a decoy, and walked four paces behind the Captain and Doctor down the narrow, artificially-lit corridor. Everything was gray and dull, and the path seemed round as if the building was arranged in a series of circles. The trio came to a fork in the hall where Kirk stopped abruptly. He turned around, "Sylar," he started but let his words die into a short gasp. Sylar knew what gave the man pause.

"When we do find him, would it not increase his chance for escape if there are two Spocks?" He raised his Spock-brows.

Kirk's jaw moved as if to speak but it took a while for actual words to come forth. "Uh, sure. Yeah, that'll work. Right."

"Left," Sylar countered.

"Oh, I meant," Kirk gestured at Sylar. "Nevermind. Okay, left it is."

They ran into two Romulans, both of whom Kirk stunned immediately with his phaser. After the second one, McCoy spoke up. "Hey uh Jim, don't you think you should stop dropping these Romulans like stones and _ask _them where the Vulcan is?"

"I agree with the good Doctor," Sylar commented, toeing the most recently felled Romulan with his boot. He studied the alien, who looked Vulcan to him except maybe for the wrinkled forehead, though that could be accounted for by age possibly as the man looked old.

"I suppose we could try a little interrogation. I'm trying to keep the element of surprise." Kirk wiped his brow with his shirt sleeves. He looked attentive but concerned. "Sylar, what about the physic connection you felt with Spock? Can you trace it now?"

"It would sure as hell save us time, man," McCoy muttered under his breath.

Before their eyes, Sylar morphed into the Romulan at their feet. He furrowed his new already-furrowed brow and said, "Doubtful. Spock seems to…" Sylar trailed off for a moment to collect his thoughts. He was about to say that Spock seemed to be the one controlling the connection, not him, but he didn't want to admit that weakness aloud. Instead he said, "he's unreachable. Probably unconscious." Sylar had no evidence for that, but whatever. He wasn't about to tell them he'd only been focused on learning how to mind whammy himself, not on bridging telepathic connections with others. It wasn't an oversight. It was prioritization.

This time his new face didn't faze either man (apparently it was only disconcerting when he changed into Spock). Kirk spoke decisively, "Okay. Onward then. McCoy, try to scan for a lone Vulcan."

"Dammit Jim, _all_ the lifeforms crawling around this hellhole all pointy eared bastards."

Sylar interjected. "Meaning you can't distinguish a Vulcan from a Romulan lifeform?"

"It's like lining up a bunch of melons asking which one's a fruit."

"I thought you had transponders in your arms," Sylar pointed to the underside of his forearm, "to trace each other."

"And the Romulans know it," McCoy informed him, his eyes glinting. "Probably was the first cut they made on him."

"It better have been the last," Kirk growled.

"Easy tiger, let's just find Spock already," McCoy said. "He'd say you're acting like an overgrown sehlat."

Sylar quirked a brow, "Sehlat?"

McCoy grinned, "Vulcans' version of the teddy bear. Spock had one when he was growin' up."

The three men picked their pace up, "A teddy bear with _fangs_, Bones."

All banter stopped when they reached several wide, frosted glass doors that looked like the entrance to an emergency room facility. "Let's clear this room," Kirk suggested, entering the white, sterile environment.

"Captain!" Lt. Uhura's urgent voice came from further inside the medical ward. "He's here. Spock's here. Do you have McCoy?"

Kirk and McCoy stepped over a stunned Romulan doctor on their way to where Uhura and Sulu were standing. Uhura was guarding two trussed up Romulans whose mouths were taped shut while Sulu was working with some controls at a windowed chamber sealed off from the rest of the ward. Kirk addressed his officers, "Good work, Uhura, Sulu." Then he peered through the windows into the small white chamber where he saw his First Officer huddled in a fetal position in a corner of the rounded space. He looked unconscious though his body was shivering, probably from the chill of the cold air. "Get us in there," he ordered Sulu.

"Right away, Sir," Sulu replied.

Uhura spared a questioning glance to Kirk regarding the still-standing Romulan in the room. Kirk answered her unspoken query, thumbing in Sylar's direction. "It's Sylar."

Sulu's fingers were flying over the comm but eventually they slowed and he stopped altogether. "I can't, Sir. I've been unable to hack through the passcode system."

Kirk whirled around to face the two tied-up Romulans. One was female and the other was male, and both were dressed in long white lab coats. They looked civilized, but appearances could be deceiving. "Give me the code to Spock's chamber here. Now," he demanded, ripping the tape off their mouths.

The Romulan woman looked defiant. "Why should we?" she spat. "We found him on Romulus. Probably spying! Seeking revenge! We didn't kidnap him from your precious Federation space."

While the Romulan was ranting, her partner was fidgeting with his hands tied behind his back. Ignoring him was a mistake, Kirk realized soberly, when suddenly both Romulans' eyes rolled into the back of their heads and they lost consciousness.

"Dammit!" Kirk swore.

McCoy went behind the pair, reached down, and held up a syringe. "He used this to knock themselves out."

Uhura asked, "Can you revive them?"

McCoy shook his head. "They'll be out for a few hours,"

"Dammit!" Kirk repeated and slammed his fists against the heavy glass window separating them from Spock.

"If I may," Sylar said, approaching the glass partition. If this alien glass was anything like the reinforced glass in the Company's holding cells, Sylar could smash straight through it. He'd done so to kill Eden and get her delicious power to make people do what you want. If the glass was not like that, well, he'd give the _Enterprise_ contingent a nice, bloody show. With barely a thought, he turned back into his true form and raised his fists up and behind him. With supreme effort, he slammed them down into the glass. _CRASH_!

The glass cracked and shattered loudly, pieces falling haphazardly. Kirk and McCoy leapt past him towards Spock. Sylar cradled his hands and watched the cuts close themselves satisfyingly. He licked at one hand to clean the remaining blood. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Uhura staring at him. He smiled and licked off more of the coppery fluid for show. Uhura looked away.

The sound of the smashing glass had apparently woken Spock from what had been a fitful sleep. Kirk was propping him, Spock's long legs now stretched out full length in front of him, and McCoy was examining him. "Bones?" Kirk prompted.

Sylar watched McCoy jab a hypo into Spock's lolling neck. "Just give him a minute. Unless you want to carry him outa here."

"Sir!" Sulu called out. "We might not have a minute, Sir. The readings on this comm are telling me the Romulans have discovered intruders are present."

Accustomed to giving orders to his crew, Kirk pointed to Sylar and said brusquely, "You! Carry him." Kirk waited until Sylar came over to reach for Spock's still dazed form before relinquishing his hold on his First and jumping to his feet. "You heard Sulu, everybody move out!"

"Split up, Sir?" Uhura asked.

"No, it's time to get the hell out of Dodge," Kirk replied, hoisting his phaser up. Sulu and Uhura followed suit.

"Easy, easy," McCoy was saying unhelpfully as Sylar lifted Spock into his arms. The Vulcan moaned quietly but didn't open his eyes. Physically, from what Sylar could see around the thin hospital-issue white shirt and pants, Spock looked fine. But he seemed drugged and uncomfortable.

Their small contingent headed back the way to they came, Kirk leading the way and Sulu guarding the rear point, occasionally stunning Romulans as they went. The place, with its rounding halls and monotonous gray tones, was like a maze without visual clues.

Rounding a corner, they ran into Giotto and Ensign Ro, who thankfully had mapped a way to an exit. Working together, the team made efficient progress and before long were back out in the raging winds of the lunar surface.

In Sylar's arms, the shock of the wind and McCoy's finally-working hypo seemed to rouse Spock, who grunted and burrowed his face in Sylar's shirt. Sylar tried to ignore him but he also seemed to perceive he was being held and started to struggle out of Sylar's grasp. "Ugh, stay _still_," Sylar complained to his squirming and suddenly extremely heavy bundle, since Spock had turned himself from more than a dead weight to a dead weight that was pressing to be released. Super strength, Sylar did not have. He fell to his knees and Spock rolled out of his arms. Sylar was going to call to McCoy for assistance but Kirk appeared out of nowhere, coaxing Spock to recognize him and labor to his feet, murmuring encouraging things like, "You're fine now. It's me. We're going back to the _Enterprise_. You can do it. Come on. One foot in front of the other. That's it. Let's go." Sylar came around to Spock's other side and the two of them half-supported half-dragged Spock to the shuttle. When they got in, the hatch screeched to close, and Kirk dropped Spock to run to the pilot seat.

Remembering their last flight, Sylar wanted to buckle himself into a seat. But then Spock would be tossed around in the turbulence, as he hadn't raised himself from floor, not even his head. Sylar was grateful when McCoy stepped in to roll Spock onto a flat stretcher and tie him in gently. Still prone, Spock did manage to open his eyes and the first thing he saw come into focus was Sylar's visage staring right back at him. Spock's parched lips opened and his brows creased. Despite his vulnerability, he glared at Sylar accusingly, "You!!"


End file.
